Kyiv: Ukrainian officials said Russian missiles struck a city in central Ukraine on Thursday, killing at least 23 people and injuring more than 100. Ukraine’s president alleged that the attack deliberately targeted civilians in places of no military value. Officials said Kalibr cruise missiles fired from a Russian submarine in the Black Sea targeted civilian buildings in the city of Vinnytsia, 268 kilometers southwest of the capital Kyiv.
Serhi Borzov of the Vinnytsia region said Ukrainian air defense shot down two of the four Russian missiles launched.
National Police Chief Ihor Klymenko said so far only six bodies had been identified, while 39 people were still missing. Three children are also among the dead.
Ukraine’s State Emergency Service said five of the 65 hospitalized people were in critical condition while 34 were seriously injured.
“There was a building of a medical organization. When the first rocket hit, the glass fell from my windows,” said Vinnytsia resident Svitlana Kubas, 74. “And when the second wave came, it was so deaf that my head was still buzzing. It tore the outermost door, cracked it right through the hole. ,
Officials said the missiles opened fire as they hit buildings, which spread to 50 cars in a parking lot.
“These are fairly high-precision missiles … they knew where they were hitting,” Borzov told the AP.
Russia has not officially confirmed the strike. But Margarita Simonyan, the head of state-controlled Russian television network RT, said on her messaging app channel that military officials told her a building in Vinnytsia was targeted because it housed Ukrainian “Nazis”.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky accused Russia of deliberately targeting missiles at civilians. The strike occurred when government officials from about 40 countries met in The Hague, Netherlands, to discuss coordinating investigations and prosecution of possible war crimes committed in Ukraine.
“Every day Russia is destroying civilian populations, killing Ukrainian children, directing missiles at civilian objects. Where there is no military (target). What if not an open act of terrorism?” Zelensky wrote on Telegram.
Ukrainian Interior Minister Denis Monastyrsky echoed Zelensky, calling the missile attack a “war crime” intended to intimidate Ukrainians while the country’s forces remain in the east.
The US embassy in Kyiv issued a security alert late Thursday urging all US citizens living in Ukraine to leave immediately.
The alert, which appeared in response to the Vinnytsia attack, stressed that large gatherings and organized events “could serve as Russian military targets anywhere in Ukraine, including its western regions.”
Vinnytsia is one of the largest cities in Ukraine with a pre-war population of 370,000. Thousands of people in eastern Ukraine, where Russia has concentrated its offensive, have fled since Russia invaded Ukraine on February 24.
Katerina Popova said she saw several wounded people lying on the road after being hit by missiles. Popova fled Kharkiv in March in search of safety in “quiet” Vinnytsia. But the missile attack changed all that.
“We didn’t expect it. Now we feel like we don’t have a home again,” she said.
Borzov said 36 homes were damaged and residents have been evacuated, while a 24-hour hotline has been set up for information about the injured or missing. He said that July 14 will be declared as a day of mourning.
Ukrainian military analyst Oleh Zhdanov said the attack reflected previous attacks on residential areas that Moscow has launched “to try to pressure Kyiv to make some concessions”.
“Russia has used the same tactics when attacking the Odessa region, Kremenchuk, Chasiv Yar and other areas,” Zhdanov said.
“The Kremlin wants to show that it will continue to use unconventional methods of warfare and kill civilians in defiance of Kyiv and the entire international community.”
Before the missiles hit Vinnytsia, the presidential office reported the death of five civilians and the wounding of eight others in Russian strikes in the past.
A missile damaged several buildings in the southern city of Mykolaiv early Thursday, injuring one person. At least five people were killed in the city in a missile attack on Wednesday.
Russian forces continued to carry out artillery and missile strikes in eastern Ukraine, mainly after retaking the adjacent Luhansk region in Donetsk province.
The city of Lisichansk, the last major stronghold of the Ukrainian resistance in Luhansk, fell to Russian forces earlier this month.
Luhansk and Donetsk together make up the Donbass, an area of mostly Russian-speaking steel factories, mines and other industries that drive Ukraine’s economy.
Meanwhile, Donetsk government Pavlo Kyrilenko urged residents to evacuate “as soon as possible”.
“We are urging citizens to leave the area where electricity, water and gas are in short supply after the Russian shelling,” Kirilenko said in televised remarks. “The fighting is intensifying, and people should stop risking their lives and leave the area.”
On the war front, Russian and Ukrainian armies are seeking to replenish their depleted stock of unmanned aerial vehicles to locate enemy positions and guide artillery strikes.
Both sides are looking to buy jamming-resistant, advanced drones that can provide a decisive edge in the war. Ukrainian officials say the demand for such technology is “extremely” as crowdfunding efforts are underway to raise the needed cash.
In other developments:
Russian-established officials in the Zaporizhzhya region of southeastern Ukraine announced that they planned to hold a referendum in early September to include the region in Russia. The bulk of Zaporizhzhia is now under Russian control, as is most of neighboring Kherson. Kremlin-backed administrations in both regions have declared their intention to become part of Russia. Separatist leaders in the self-proclaimed Donetsk and Luhansk “republics” have announced similar plans.
— Russia’s parliamentary speaker visited separatist-held areas in eastern Ukraine on Thursday, after Kremlin-founded officials in the country’s south announced they would hold a referendum on joining Russia. According to Russian news agencies, Vyacheslav Volodin in his address to the self-declared Legislative Assembly of the region spoke of the need for harmonization of law between Russia and the self-proclaimed “Luhansk People’s Republic”. He said Moscow and the separatists needed to “create a single legal zone” in the areas of health care, education, public utilities and social security.
– Russian President Vladimir Putin signed into law a bill on Thursday that bans the dissemination of information about Russian companies and individuals who could face international sanctions. The law expressly prohibits any information about transactions conducted or planned by Russian persons or legal entities participating in foreign economic activities “without written permission” from Internet or media publications. It also suspends mandatory publication of key financial and governance information by major Russian state corporations for three years.