Washington DC - The US on Monday denounced as "savage" a strike on a children's hospital in Kyiv and said it believed Russia carried it out deliberately.

"Russia unleashed another savage missile attack on civilians," State Department spokesman Matthew Miller told reporters.

Asked about Russia's assertion that Ukrainian air defenses were to blame, Miller said, "Give me a break – there's no one else lobbing missiles at Ukraine right now."

He said that Russia, under President Vladimir Putin, had a track record of targeting civilians.

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"These are sites that serve no military purpose. They're not sheltering Ukrainian military assets," Miller told reporters. "They're not sheltering members of the Ukrainian military. These are civilian's infrastructure, pure and simple."

"Once again, we've seen Putin deliberately attacking civilian infrastructure as part of his bloody war against Ukraine," he said.

UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres called the deadly Russian strikes "particularly shocking," his spokesman said on Monday.

"Directing attacks against civilians and civilian objects is prohibited by international humanitarian law, and any such attacks are unacceptable. And must cease immediately," Guterres' spokesman, Stephane Dujarric, said.

Ukrainian officials said 33 people were killed and another 136 wounded in the wave of 38 missiles. Three more were killed by Russian fire in Pokrovsk in eastern Ukraine.