Russian missiles have struck civilian buildings and a cultural centre in the city of Vinnytsia, in central Ukraine, killing at least 23 people – including three children – and wounding dozens more in what President Volodymyr Zelenskiy called “an open act of terrorism”.
The attack on Vinnytsia, far from the war’s frontlines, occurred in mid-morning when the streets were full of people. It appeared to hit a business centre, setting cars on fire and sending plumes of thick black smoke over the city.
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.
The Russian military did not immediately confirm the strike, but Margarita Simonyan, head of the 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”.
Vinnytsia is one of Ukraine’s largest cities, with a population of 370,000. Thousands of people from eastern Ukraine, where Russia has concentrated its offensive, have fled there since the start of the war.
Ihor Klymenko, the national police chief, said only six of the dead had been identified so far, while 39 people were still missing. Of the 66 people taken to hospital, five remained in critical condition while 34 sustained severe injuries, Ukraine’s state emergency service said in an update issued just after 10pm on Thursday.
The missiles ignited a fire that spread to engulf 50 cars in an adjacent car park, officials said.
Among the horrific images from the scene was one of a dead child in a buggy next to a severed foot. The child’s mother survived but lost a leg.
“A girl is among the dead today in Vinnytsia, she was four years old, her name was Liza. The child was four years old! Her mother is in critical condition,” Zelenskiy said in his Thursday evening address.
The news of the attack emerged as EU foreign and justice ministers were meeting in The Hague for a conference on alleged Russian war crimes.
The international criminal court’s chief prosecutor called on Thursday for an “overarching strategy” to coordinate efforts to bring perpetrators of war crimes in Ukraine to justice.
“The simple truth is that, as we speak, children, women and men, the young and the old, are living in terror,” the ICC prosecutor, Karim Khan, said as he opened a Ukraine accountability conference in The Hague.
In opening remarks at the conference organised by the ICC and the European Commission, Ukraine’s foreign minister, Dmytro Kuleba, said Russia should be held responsible for its actions in Ukraine.
“All we want is the crime of aggression to not remain unpunished,” he told EU and ICC officials, describing the Vinnytsia attack as “a war crime”.
Zelenskiy said: “Every day Russia destroys civilian population, kills Ukrainian children and directs rockets at civilian targets where there is nothing military. What is this if not an open act of terrorism? It is a killer state. A terrorist state.”
The regional governor, Serhiy Borzov, said: “We have an airstrike in Vinnytsia. There are dead and wounded. The number is being assessed,” adding that several other missiles had been shot down.
According to reports, seven cruise missiles launched from the Black Sea landed in the city, with four intercepted by Ukrainian air defences.
The area hit appeared to be the House of Officers building in Premehoy Square, a concert hall dating back to the Soviet era that residents say was used for cultural and social events.
Video footage posted on social media showed the roof blown off the House of Officers and a scorched multistorey building opposite – identified as the Yuvileny business centre – with restaurants and other businesses on the ground floor also badly damaged.
Other footage showed an injured woman being evacuated by rescue workers.
Footage also showed a damaged pushchair on the pavement in an area scattered with large fragments of metal.
In one video, taken from a nearby balcony in front of the site of the strike, a voice can be heard saying: “Just two minutes ago. The House of Officers. Next to the Yuvileny building. All the windows are smashed out.”
Moscow, which invaded Ukraine on 24 February, has denied deliberately targeting civilians.
Zelenskiy has vowed to hold Moscow to account and has called for a special war crimes tribunal to be set up in the Netherlands.
The ICC opened an investigation into possible war crimes in Ukraine days after Moscow’s forces invaded, and dispatched dozens of investigators to the country to gather evidence.
About 40 countries from the EU and around the world sent representatives to Thursday’s conference.
The ICC does not have jurisdiction to prosecute the crime of aggression in Ukraine, because Russia and Ukraine are not among the court’s 123 member states. Kyiv has, however, accepted the court’s jurisdiction and that cleared the way for Khan to open an investigation in Ukraine in early March after dozens of the global court’s member countries asked him to intervene.
He has visited Ukraine to see the horrors inflicted on the country and sent the court’s largest ever team of investigators to gather evidence.
So far, the court has not announced any arrest warrants for suspects in the investigation that could reach to the very top of Russia’s military chain of command, as well as to the Kremlin.
