Russia kills 22 civilians in Ukraine as the Kremlin remains defiant over Trump threats

NBC News

2 days ago

Russian glide bombs and ballistic missiles struck a Ukrainian prison and a medical facility overnight as Russia's relentless strikes on civilian areas killed at least 22 people across the country, officials said Tuesday, despite President Donald Trump's threat to soon punish Russia with sanctions and tariffs unless it stops.
Four powerful Russian glide bombs hit a prison in Ukraine's southeastern Zaporizhzhia region, authorities said. They killed at least 17 inmates and wounded more than 80 others, officials said.
In the Dnipro region of central Ukraine, authorities said Russian missiles partially destroyed a three-story building and damaged nearby medical facilities, including a maternity hospital and a city hospital ward. Officials said at least four people were killed, including a 23-year-old pregnant woman, and eight were injured.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said that across the country, 22 people were killed in Russian strikes on 73 cities, towns and villages. 'These were conscious, deliberate strikes — not accidental,' Zelenskyy said on Telegram.
Trump said Monday he is giving Russian President Vladimir Putin 10 to 12 days to stop the killing in Ukraine after three years of war, moving up a 50-day deadline he had given the Russian leader two weeks ago. The move meant Trump wants peace efforts to make progress by Aug. 7-9.
Trump has repeatedly rebuked Putin for talking about ending the war but continuing to bombard Ukrainian civilians. But the Kremlin hasn't changed its tactics.
'I'm disappointed in President Putin,' Trump said during a visit to Scotland.
Zelenskyy welcomed Trump's move on the timeline. 'Everyone needs peace — Ukraine, Europe, the United States and responsible leaders across the globe,' Zelenskyy wrote in a post on Telegram. 'Everyone except Russia.'
The Kremlin pushed back, with a top Putin lieutenant warning Trump against 'playing the ultimatum game with Russia.'
'Russia isn't Israel or even Iran,' former president Dmitry Medvedev, who is deputy head of the country's Security Council, wrote on social platform X.
'Each new ultimatum is a threat and a step towards war. Not between Russia and Ukraine, but with his own country,' Medvedev said.
Since Russia's full-scale invasion of its neighbor, the Kremlin has warned Kyiv's Western backers that their involvement could end up broadening the war to NATO countries.
'Kremlin officials continue to frame Russia as in direct geopolitical confrontation with the West in order to generate domestic support for the war in Ukraine and future Russian aggression against NATO,' the Institute for the Study of War, a Washington think tank, said late Monday.
The Ukrainian air force said Russia launched two Iskander-M ballistic missiles along with 37 Shahed-type strike drones and decoys at Ukraine overnight. It said 32 Shahed drones were intercepted or neutralized by Ukrainian air defenses.
The Russian attack close to midnight Monday hit the Bilenkivska Correctional Facility with glide bombs, according to the State Criminal Executive Service of Ukraine.
Glide bombs, which are Soviet-era bombs retrofitted with retractable fins and guidance systems, have been laying waste to cities in eastern Ukraine, where the Russian army is trying to pierce Ukrainian defenses. The bombs carry up to 3,000 kilograms (6,600 pounds) of explosives.
At least 42 inmates were hospitalized with serious injuries, while another 40 people, including one staff member, sustained various injuries.
The strike destroyed the prison's dining hall, damaged administrative and quarantine buildings, but the perimeter fence held and no escapes were reported, authorities said.
Ukrainian officials condemned the attack, saying that targeting civilian infrastructure, such as prisons, is a war crime under international conventions.
The assault occurred exactly three years after an explosion killed more than 50 people at the Olenivka detention facility in the Russia-occupied Donetsk region, where dozens of Ukrainian prisoners were killed.
Russia and Ukraine accused each other of shelling the prison. The Associated Press interviewed over a dozen people with direct knowledge of details of that attack, including survivors, investigators and families of the dead and missing. All described evidence they believed points directly to Russia as the culprit. The AP also obtained an internal United Nations analysis that found the same.
Further Russian attacks hit communities in Synelnykivskyi district with FPV drones and aerial bombs, killing at least one person and injuring two others, regional Gov. Serhii Lysak said.
Russian forces also targeted the community of Velykomykhailivska, killing a 75-year-old woman and injuring a 68-year-old man, according to Lysak.
Ukraine has sought to fight back against Russian strikes by developing its own long-range drone technology, hitting oil depots, weapons plants and disrupting commercial flights.
Russia's Defense Ministry said Tuesday that air defenses downed 74 Ukrainian drones over several regions overnight, including 43 over the Bryansk region.
Yuri Slyusar, the head of the Rostov region said a man in the city of Salsk was killed in a drone attack, which started a fire at the Salsk railway station.