Ukraine war: 23 killed in Russian rocket attack on Vinnytsia

BBC News:

Russian missiles have struck a city far from the eastern frontline, killing at least 23 people including three children, Ukrainian officials say.

More than 100 were reported injured in the attack in Vinnytsia, which is south-west of Kyiv and a long way from the heart of the fighting in Donbas.

Three Russian missiles hit an office block and damaged residential buildings.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky called it “an open act of terrorism”.

The missiles hit the car park of the nine-storey office block at around 10:50 (07:50 GMT), Ukraine’s State Emergency Service said. Residential buildings were also hit in the centre of Vinnytsia, which has a population of around 370,000.

The Russian defence ministry, which denies targeting civilians, has yet to comment on the strike.

The Ukrainian presidency said the attack had come from Kalibr cruise missiles launched from a submarine in the Black Sea.

Several dozen people were detained following the attack, Ukraine’s minister of internal affairs said, adding that they were being interrogated by the police and Ukraine’s security service.

A senior regional emergency service official told local TV that there was “probably no chance of finding anyone who survived” the attack.

“Every day, Russia kills civilians, kills Ukrainian children, carries out missile attacks on the civilian facilities where there is no military target. What is this, if not an open act of terrorism?” Mr Zelensky said in a statement on social media.

He said that Russia had ended the lives of civilians at the same time as a conference on Russian war crimes was taking place in the Netherlands.

“Russia has thus shown its attitude to international law, to Europe, and to the entire civilised world,” he said.

“After that, no-one can have any doubt that a Special Tribunal on Russian aggression against Ukraine is needed as soon as possible.”

Ukrainian officials said one of the three children who died in the attack was a young girl called Liza, who was returning from a speech therapy session with her mother when the rocket strike hit.

Social media footage reposted by Ukraine’s defence ministry appeared to show Liza pushing a pink pram as she walked alongside her mother earlier in the day.

A pram that resembled the little girl’s was later photographed on its side outside the building hit by the rocket strike. Other images showed what appeared to be the same pram with a child’s body lying beside it.