Russian strikes hit a populated city in central Ukraine on Thursday, leaving more than 20 civilians dead and about 90 injured.
Interior Minister Denys Monastyrskyi told reporters in the city of Vinnytsia that 21 people have been pronounced dead and another 50 are seriously wounded. Three children were among the dead.
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The country’s national police said that three missiles hit an office building and damaged nearby buildings. A fire ensued, and it engulfed 50 cars in an adjacent parking lot. The missiles were fired from a submarine in the Black Sea, according to Reuters.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky again accused the Russian military of committing terrorism against his country’s civilians.
“Every day Russia is destroying the civilian population, killing Ukrainian children, directing missiles at civilian objects. Where there is no military (targets). What is it if not an open act of terrorism?” Zelensky wrote on the Telegram messaging app.
The city is far from the front lines of the war, demonstrating Russia’s ability to continue to target parts of Ukraine outside of the east through the air.
Russia’s military campaign in Ukraine, which began in late February, has consistently included launching strikes targeting civilian areas and infrastructure, often resulting in the deaths of innocent Ukrainians.
Days earlier, Russian troops hit an apartment complex in the town of Chasiv Yar in the Donetsk region, killing at least 15 people and leaving dozens buried in the rubble, Ukrainian officials said Sunday. At the same time, three strikes hit a school, a residential building, and an area near a warehouse in Kharkiv in separate attacks.
The United States and many Western governments have accused the Russian military of committing war crimes throughout the war, while a couple of Russian soldiers have already been captured, tried, and convicted on charges related to war crimes. Earlier this week, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken declared the Russians’ forced detainment or deportation of roughly a million Ukrainians a war crime as well.
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“Eyewitnesses and survivors of ‘filtration’ operations, detentions, and forced deportations report frequent threats, harassment, and incidents of torture by Russian security forces,” Blinken said. “During this process, Russian authorities also reportedly capture and store biometric and personal data, subject civilians to invasive searches and interrogations and coerce Ukrainian citizens into signing agreements to stay in Russia, hindering their ability to freely return home.”
The Biden administration’s top diplomat urged Russia to “immediately halt its systematic ‘filtration’ operations and forced deportations in Russian-controlled and held areas of Ukraine” and said it fit its playbook.
