At least 20 killed after Russia launches rare attack on central Ukraine city

President Volodymyr Zelensky calls it an ‘act of terror’

At least 20 people, including a child, have been killed in a rare Russian strike on the central city of Vinnytsia, Ukraine’s emergency services have said.

Another 90 people were injured said officials.

National police chief Ihor Klymenko said he believed three missiles hit an office block in the centre of the city, damaging nearby residential buildings.

He added the firefighters were at the scene fighting a blaze that had set about 50 vehicles on fire.

“Today in the morning, Russian missiles hit our city of Vinnytsia, an ordinary, peaceful city,” Ukraine’s president, Volodymyr Zelensky, told an international conference.

“Cruise missiles hit two community facilities, houses were destroyed, a medical centre was destroyed, the cars and trams were on fire. This is the act of Russian terror … 20 people died as of now.”

Mr Zelensky suggested the attack was deliberately aimed at civilians.

Footage reportedly taken by residents at the scene showed plumes of smoke towering above the building.

The governor of the Vinnytsia region, Serhiy Borzov, said Ukrainian air defence systems shot down another four missiles over the area.

Vinnytsia had, until now, escaped the worst of Russia’s bombardment, and has become a hub for humanitarian aid as it lies on the crossroads of the east and the west of the country.

The city is located about 170 miles south-west of the capital, Kyiv.

The strike happened at the same time as officials from about 40 countries met in The Hague to discuss co-ordinating efforts to investigate and prosecute potential war crimes in Ukraine.

Before the missiles hit Vinnytsia, the president’s office reported the deaths of five civilians and the wounding of another eight in Russian attacks over the past 24 hours.

One person was wounded when a missile damaged several buildings in the southern city of Mykolaiv early on Thursday, Ukrainian authorities said.

A missile attack on Wednesday killed at least five people in the city.

Destroyed vehicles in Vinnytsia (Reuters)

Russian forces also continued artillery and missile attacks in eastern Ukraine, primarily in Donetsk province after overtaking adjacent Luhansk.

The city of Lysychansk, the last major stronghold of Ukrainian resistance in Luhansk, fell to Russian forces at the beginning of the month.

Luhansk and Donetsk together make up the Donbas, a mostly Russian-speaking region of steel factories, mines and other industries.

Donetsk governor Pavlo Kyrylenko urged residents to evacuate as “quickly as possible”.

“We are urging civilians to leave the region, where electricity, water and gas are in short supply after the Russian shelling,” Mr Kyrylenko said.

“The fighting is intensifying, and people should stop risking their lives and leave the region.”

The British Ministry of Defence (MoD) said on Thursday that despite continued shelling in the Donbas region, Russian forces have not made major territorial gains in recent days.

“The ageing vehicles, weapons and Soviet-era tactics used by Russian forces do not lend themselves to quickly regaining or building momentum unless used in overwhelming mass – which Russia is currently unable to bring to bear,” the MoD said.