The Russian Defense Ministry claimed in a military briefing on Friday that Thursday’s cruise missile attack targeted a building where top officials from Ukraine’s air force were meeting with foreign arms suppliers. “The attack resulted in the extermination of the participants,” the ministry said. Ukraine rejected Russian claims that any military target was hit, saying the attack, which took place hundreds of kilometers from the front lines, killed at least 23 people – including three children – and hit a cultural center used by retired veterans. Among the gruesome images from the scene released by Ukrainian officials was a dead baby in a stroller next to a severed leg. The child’s mother is in critical condition in hospital, said Serhiy Borzov, an official in Vinnytsia. Ukrainian rescuers on Friday continued search operations in the city, where 18 people are still missing, according to the president’s office. In his nightly address to the nation on Thursday, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said the death toll was likely to rise. Russia has repeatedly denied that it is targeting civilians in Ukraine, despite mounting evidence collected by independent journalists and human rights groups that contradicts these claims. Moscow on Friday continued to bomb infrastructure across Ukraine. At least 10 rockets hit two major universities in the southern city of Mykolaiv, regional governor Vitali Kim said. Kim said four S-300 missiles hit the Mykolaiv National University and five hit the National Shipbuilding University in downtown Mykolaiv. Two floors of the National University were destroyed, Kim said, adding that it was “impossible to restore the facilities before the start of the academic year.” Local authorities did not immediately release an official casualty count. Footage posted online after the strikes showed severely damaged classrooms and destroyed laboratories littered with debris and research equipment. In eastern Ukraine, Moscow’s “operational standoff largely continued,” with small-scale attacks on Thursday centered on the Ukrainian-controlled cities of Donetsk, Sloviansk, Shiversk and Bakhmut, according to a report published by the Institute for the Study of War based in Washington. . The ISW also estimated that Russia “is likely to launch a larger-scale and more decisive offensive along the Slovyansk-Siversk-Bakhmut line soon.” Subscribe to First Edition, our free daily newsletter – every weekday morning at 7am Last week, Putin ordered his senior generals to continue their advance into the western parts of Ukraine’s Donetsk province after the Russian army captured the country’s eastern Luhansk region after months of heavy fighting. Ukraine’s military said in a Facebook post on Friday that Russian forces are regrouping in the direction of Kramatorsk in order to resume the offensive towards Siversk. Moscow-backed separatists said on Friday they had surrounded Shiversk, claiming Ukrainian troops were withdrawing from the city. “The Ukrainian administration has decided to gradually withdraw its units from the city of Shiversk,” Andrei Marochko, a spokesman for the separatist forces, told Russia’s state-run Tass news agency. The Guardian was unable to independently verify these claims.
