Russia-Ukraine latest updates: Zelenskyy slams Vinnytsia attack

The European Union has strongly condemned Russia’s bombardment of Vinnytsia, calling the attack an “atrocity”.

“This atrocity in Vinnytsia is the latest in a long series of brutal attacks targeting civilians and civilian infrastructure,” EU foreign policy chief Josep Borrell and Commissioner for Crisis Management Janez Lenarcic said in a statement.

“There can be no impunity for violations and crimes committed by the Russian forces and their political superiors.”

Russia and Ukraine account for about 29 percent of global wheat exports, almost a third of the world supply.  The main customers are from the Middle East and North Africa.

Egypt receives a quarter of their wheat from Ukraine, Libya almost half, and Lebanon more than 60 percent.

What could this massive disruption in the supply chain entail for many countries in the region?

Listen here.

Ukraine’s leader Zelenskyy has called for a “special tribunal” to investigate Russia’s invasion of his country.

“Existing judicial institutions cannot bring all the guilty parties to justice. Therefore, a special tribunal is needed to address the crime of Russian aggression against Ukraine,” Zelenskyy said via video link to a conference at The Hague focused on war crimes in Ukraine.

He said the tribunal should “ensure the fair and lawful punishment of those who started this series of disasters”.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has condemned Russia for carrying out missile strikes that killed at least 21 people, including three children, on Vinnytsia in the centre of the country.

“Every day, Russia kills civilians, kills Ukrainian children, carries out missile attacks on civilian facilities where there is no military target. What is this if not an open act of terrorism?” Zelenskyy asked.

Two people were killed when Ukrainian forces shelled a bus station in the separatist-held city of Donetsk in eastern Ukraine, a separatist leader has said.

In a post on Telegram, Denis Pushilin, head of the self-proclaimed, Russian-backed Donetsk People’s Republic (DPR), said that two civilians had been killed and three wounded when the bus station was struck by a howitzer.

Ukrainian interior ministry adviser Anton Herashchenko accused Russian forces on social media of striking the centre of Donetsk but pinning the blame on Ukraine.

Al Jazeera was unable to independently verify the claims of the DPR leader.

A report by the world’s largest security body has expressed “grave concern” about alleged mistreatment of tens of thousands of Ukrainians at so-called filtration centres set up by Russia in Ukraine.

“There are reports indicating that people are subject to harsh interrogations and humiliating body searches in such centres,” said the 115-page report, calling the setting up of such centres an “alarming” development.

It added that those found to have collaborated with Kyiv “often simply disappear”, with some being allegedly transferred to Russian-controlled territories, where they are detained or even murdered.

The report is based on a mission of three experts working under the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE) and covering the Ukraine war from April 1 to June 25.

Finland will host a round of the figure skating Grand Prix series that was removed from Russia following its invasion of Ukraine, the International Skating Union (ISU) has said.

The ISU said the November 25-27 event will move to Espoo, Finland near Helsinki, as the last of the six regular Grand Prix events before the Grand Prix Final in Italy.

Russia is one of the world’s leading figure skating nations and has held its Grand Prix, known as the Rostelecom Cup, each year since 1996. The ISU excluded all skaters from Russia and its ally Belarus from international competitions on March 1, shortly after the Russian invasion of Ukraine began.

A deal to restart exports of Ukrainian grain through the country’s deep sea ports could be a game changer, the chairman of Ukraine’s top food producer MHP has said, though he warned that getting produce to export terminals still presents major challenges.

Russia, Ukraine, Turkey and the United Nations are due to sign a deal next week aimed at resuming Ukraine’s Black Sea grain exports, following talks in Istanbul.

While the potential agreement was positive, execution will be challenging, with ports needing to be de-mined and with infrastructure damaged in Mykolaiv and Odesa, MHP Chairman John Rich told Reuters news agency in an interview.

“We still have to ship the grain to the ports, and infrastructure is difficult, we still have to do so under fire – Mykolaiv and Odesa have been hit by missiles in the past 72 hours,” Rich said.

More than 40 countries – including the United States, United Kingdom, Canada, Mexico, Australia, and European Union member states – have agreed to coordinate investigations into suspected war crimes in Ukraine, shortly after what Kyiv said was a Russian missile strike that killed civilians far from front lines.

At a conference in The Hague – headquarters of the International Criminal Court (ICC) – the countries signed a political declaration to work together on the investigations.

They also pledged 20 million euros ($20 million) to assist the ICC, as well as the prosecutor general’s office in Ukraine and United Nations support efforts.

Ukraine destroyed a series of Russian ordnance depots in the 20th week of the war, demonstrating the efficiency of the US-supplied high mobility artillery rocket system (HIMARS) and other Western systems, worrying Russian military observers.

These Ukrainian attacks appear to be part of preparations for a summer counteroffensive in the southern Kherson and Zaporizhzhia districts, which border Crimea.

Ukraine said it destroyed a key Russian command post in Kherson district along with a weapons arsenal, killing 12 Russian soldiers on July 10. Its armed forces posted drone footage of a depot in flames.

Read more here.

Russian missiles that struck a city in central Ukraine killed at least 20 people and wounded about 90 others, Ukrainian authorities have said.

Ukraine’s national police said three missiles hit an office building and damaged nearby residential buildings in Vinnytsia, which is located 268km (167 miles) southwest of the capital, Kyiv.

A Russian submarine in the Black Sea fired Kalibr cruise missiles at the city, the deputy head of Ukraine’s presidential office, Kyrylo Tymoshenko, wrote on the Telegram messaging app. Three children were among the dead, he said.

The Russian military has not confirmed the attack.

The missiles ignited a fire that expanded to engulf 50 cars in an adjacent parking lot, officials said. Ukrainian police said people were reported missing. The governor of the Vinnytsia region, Serhiy Borzov, said Ukrainian air defence systems shot down four more missiles over the area.

The Kremlin has refused to comment on the prospect of a prisoner exchange for detained United States basketball player Brittney Griner.

Griner, arrested at a Moscow airport in February, has pleaded guilty to drugs charges that carry a possible 10-year prison sentence but denied she intended to break the law. The third hearing of her trial gets under way later on Thursday in a court outside Moscow.

At least 17 people have been killed after Russian missiles struck the central city of Vinnytsia, the Ukrainian Prosecutor General’s office said.

Vinnytsia is far from the main front lines in eastern and southern Ukraine.

“Unfortunately, there is probably no chance of finding anyone who survived [under the rubble],” a senior regional emergency service official told Ukrainian television.

In a comment on Twitter, Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba accused Russia of committing “another war crime”.

“We will put Russian war criminals on trial for every drop of Ukrainian blood and tears,” he wrote.

Russian-installed officials in a region of Ukraine partly under Moscow’s control are aiming to stage a referendum on joining Russia in September, the RIA Novosti news agency reported, citing a local official.

The head of the civil-military administration in occupied Zaporizhia in southern Ukraine said an accession vote would be staged in September.

“The estimated date is in the first half of September,” RIA Novosti quoted Vladimir Rogov as saying.

“We will finally announce when it will be once we understand the level of readiness and involvement of the people,” Rogov said.

Russian-backed forces have seized the majority of the Zaporizhia region along Ukraine’s southern coast, but Ukraine’s military still controls the northern chunk of the region, including the city of Zaporizhzhia, the largest urban centre and home to more than half of the region’s pre-war population.

Russian foreign ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova says the future of the Nord Stream 1 gas pipeline to Germany would depend on demand in Europe and Western sanctions against Russia.

The pipeline from Russia to Germany is undergoing annual maintenance until July 21 but European governments are worried that Moscow could extend that to restrict European gas supply, disrupting plans to build up storage for winter.

Kremlin-controlled energy giant Gazprom said on Wednesday it could not guarantee the safe operation of a critical part of Nord Stream 1 because of doubt over the return of a turbine from Canada, which had imposed sanctions against the company

Canada said at the weekend it had issued a permit to allow the return of the turbine for Nord Stream 1’s Portovaya compressor station in Russia.

“As far as the gas pipeline’s work in future is concerned, a lot will depend on our partners in terms of gas demand and illegitimate sanctions, as happened with the turbines in Canada,” Zakharova said.

She said the maintenance on the pipeline had been agreed upon in advance with consumers.

Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has lashed out at Russia for carrying out a missile attack on Vinnytsia that killed at least 12 people.

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

The Russian defence ministry did not immediately comment on the reports from Vinnytsia.

The death toll from the Russian shelling on the central Ukraine city of Vinnytsia has risen to 12 – including one child – and sparking a large blaze being fought by dozens of rescue workers.

The Ukrainian emergency services said there were “12 dead, including one baby, and 25 wounded”, following the attack in Vinnytsia, adding that 90 emergency service personnel were on the scene working to put out a fire sparked by the attacks.

National police chief Ihor Klymenko, citing preliminary information, said the missiles hit an office block and damaged nearby residential buildings, causing a huge blaze which spread to a car park and set vehicles alight.

Eight people have been killed in a Russian missile attack on the central Ukrainian city of Vinnytsia, President Zelenskyy’s office said.

Police said three missiles hit an office building in the city centre, and residential buildings nearby were damaged. The State Emergency Service of Ukraine said eight civilians were killed and eight others wounded.

Russian missiles have struck the central Ukrainian city of Vinnytsia, killing at least two civilians, police said.

“There are dead and wounded,” Serhiy Borzov, governor of the Vinnytsia region, wrote on the Telegram messaging app. Police later put the initial toll at two dead and six wounded and said about 50 vehicles were on fire.

Russia’s foreign ministry has condemned the US and the UK for helping train Ukraine’s armed forces, calling it part of “hybrid warfare” being waged by NATO countries against Russia.

In a media briefing, spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said Washington had provided Ukraine with instructors who were helping Kyiv’s forces use advanced US-made high mobility artillery rocket systems (HIMARS) against Russian positions. She noted the rockets, which have a longer range and are more precise than other artillery weapons, were being used “widely” by Ukrainian forces.

Zakharova also criticised Britain’s decision to bring Ukrainian service personnel to the UK for weapons training.