Staff at a medical centre have been named as victims of a Russian missile strike on Ukraine that killed at least 23 people.
Vinnytsia, a city of 370,000 people 125 miles southwest of Kyiv and far from any frontlines in the conflict, was hit yesterday morning by three Russian cruise missiles fired from a submarine in the Black Sea.
Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky called the strike, which also hit an office block and damaged residential buildings, “an open act of terrorism”.
He accused Russia of deliberately targeting civilians. Russia claims it only attacks military targets — with one official saying the strike “targeted an officers’ residence, where preparations by Ukrainian armed forces were underway.”
The missiles, which wounded more than 100 people, also devastated the Neuromed medical centre, killing two staff and wounding medics, it was revealed on Friday.
Kateryna Hula, 24, the centre’s administrator, and manager Tetyana Kharchenko were killed and children’s neurologist Pavlo Kovalchuk and neurologist Nataliya Falshtynska were in “serious” condition.
Other deaths included Evhen Kovalenko, 25, sound producer for Ukrainian singer Roxolana, due to perform in the city last night.
Meanwhile a friend said that Irina Dmitrieva, 33, whose four-year-old daughter Liza was killed in the attack, had surgery for life-threatening lung and liver wounds.President Zelensky’s wife Olena said she had known Liza, one of the three children who died in the Russian strike.
“We were horrified to see a photo of an overturned pushchair from Vinnytsia. And then, reading the news, I realised that I knew this girl,” she said. “We met while recording a video for the Christmas holidays.” The US embassy in Kyiv warned all Americans to leave Ukraine immediately, amid fears that large
public gatherings “may serve as Russian military targets anywhere in Ukraine”.
As international outrage at the latest attack grew, US Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen condemned Russia’s “brutal and unjust war” for taking a toll “around the world”
