VINNYTSIA, Ukraine –
Russian missiles hit a town in central Ukraine on Thursday, killing at least 23 people and wounding more than 100, Ukrainian authorities said. Ukraine’s president alleged that the attack deliberately targeted civilians in locations of no military value.
Officials said Kalibr cruise missiles fired from a Russian submarine in the Black Sea hit civilian buildings in Vinnytsia, a city 268 kilometers (167 miles) southwest of the capital Kyiv. Vinnytsia region governor Serhiy Borzov said Ukrainian air defenses shot down two of the four Russian missiles that were launched.
National Police Chief Ihor Klymenko said only six bodies have been identified so far, while 39 people are still missing. Three children were among the dead. Of the 65 people hospitalized, five remain in critical condition, while 34 suffered serious injuries, Ukraine’s State Emergency Service said.
“There was a building of a medical organization. When the first rocket hit it, glass fell from my windows,” said Svitlana Kubas, 74, a resident of Vinnytsia. “And when the second wave came, it was so deafening that my head is still buzzing. She ripped out the outermost door, ripped it through the holes.”
In addition to hitting buildings, the missiles started a fire that spread to 50 cars in a parking lot, authorities said.
“These are pretty high-precision missiles… They knew where they were hitting,” Borzov told the AP.
Russia has not officially confirmed the attack. But Margarita Simonyan, director of Russia’s state-controlled television network RT, said on her messaging app channel that she was told by military officials that a building in Vinnytsia was targeted because it housed Ukrainian “Nazis.”
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy accused Russia of intentionally targeting civilians with missiles. The attack occurred as government officials from some 40 countries met in The Hague, the Netherlands, to discuss coordinating investigations and prosecutions of possible war crimes committed in Ukraine.
“Every day Russia is destroying the civilian population, killing Ukrainian children, directing missiles at civilian objects. Where there are no military (objectives). What is it but an open act of terrorism? Zelenskyy wrote on Telegram.
Ukraine’s Interior Minister Denys Monastyrsky echoed Zelenskyy, calling the missile attack a “war crime” aimed at intimidating Ukrainians as the country’s forces hold out in the east.
The US embassy in Kyiv issued a security alert Thursday night urging all US citizens remaining in Ukraine to leave immediately. The alert, which appeared to be in response to the Vinnytsia attack, stated that large gatherings and organized events “may 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 from eastern Ukraine, where Russia has concentrated its offensive, have fled there since Russia invaded Ukraine on February 24.
Kateryna Popova said that she saw many wounded lying in the street after the missiles hit. Popova had fled Kharkiv in March seeking safety in “quiet” Vinnytsia. But the missile attack changed all that.
“We did not expect this. Now we feel like we no longer have a home,” she said.
Borzov said 36 houses were damaged and residents evacuated, while a 24-hour hotline was set up to get information on the injured or missing. July 14 will be declared a day of mourning, he said.
Ukrainian military analyst Oleh Zhdanov said the attack mirrored previous ones on residential areas that Moscow launched “to try to pressure Kyiv to make some concessions.”
“Russia has used the same tactics when it hit 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 president’s office reported five civilians killed and eight others wounded in Russian strikes over the last day. One person was injured when a missile damaged several buildings in the southern city of Mykolaiv early Thursday. A missile attack on Wednesday killed at least five people in the city.
Russian forces also continued artillery and missile attacks in eastern Ukraine, mainly in Donetsk province after taking the adjacent Lugansk region. The city of Lysychansk, the last major Ukrainian resistance stronghold in Luhansk, fell to Russian forces earlier this month.
Luhansk and Donetsk together make up the Donbas, a mostly Russian-speaking region of steel mills, mines and other industries that fueled Ukraine’s economy.
Meanwhile, Donetsk Governor Pavlo Kyrylenko urged residents to evacuate as quickly as possible.
“We urge civilians to leave the region, where electricity, water and gas are in short supply after the Russian bombardment,” Kyrylenko said in televised remarks. “The fighting is intensifying and people should stop risking their lives and leave the region.”
On the front lines, the Russian and Ukrainian armies are trying to replenish their depleted stocks of unmanned aerial vehicles to identify enemy positions and guide artillery strikes.
Both sides seek to acquire advanced jamming-resistant drones that can offer a decisive advantage in battle. Ukrainian officials say demand for such technology is “immense” with crowdfunding efforts underway to raise the necessary cash.
In other developments:
- Russian-installed officials in the Zaporizhzhia region of southeastern Ukraine announced that they planned to hold a referendum in early September on the region’s incorporation into Russia. Much of Zaporizhzhia is now under Russian control, as is most of neighboring Kherson. Kremlin-backed administrations in both areas have declared their intentions to become part of Russia. Separatist leaders in the self-proclaimed “republics” of Donetsk and Luhansk have also announced similar plans.
- The speaker of the Russian parliament visited separatist-controlled areas in eastern Ukraine on Thursday, hours after Kremlin-installed officials in the country’s south announced they would hold a referendum to join Russia. According to Russian news agencies, Vyacheslav Volodin spoke of the need to harmonize legislation between Russia and the self-proclaimed “Luhansk People’s Republic” in his speech to the territory’s self-proclaimed legislative assembly. He said that Moscow and the separatists need to “create a single legal field” in the areas of health care, education, public services and social protection.
- Russian President Vladimir Putin on Thursday signed into law a bill that prohibits the dissemination of information about Russian companies and individuals that could face international sanctions. The law explicitly prohibits the publication on the Internet or in the media, without written permission, of any information about transactions carried out or planned by Russian natural or legal persons engaged in foreign economic activities. It also suspends for three years the mandatory publication of key financial and government information by major Russian state corporations.
Maria Grazia Murru reported from Kyiv.
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