 "A view of the penal colony hit by a Russian air strike, amid Russia's attack on Ukraine, in Zaporizhzhia region, Ukraine. Reuters")
A Russian attack on a prison in southeastern Ukraine has killed at least 17 inmates and injured over 80 more.
Four guided aerial bombs struck the Bilenkivska Correctional Colony in Ukraine’s Zaporizhzhia area, according to the State Criminal Executive Service of Ukraine.
“The Russians could not have been unaware that they were targeting civilians in that facility,” he wrote on X. “And this was done after a completely clear position was voiced by the United States.”
Separately, a missile strike on a hospital in the adjacent Dnipropetrovsk area killed a 23-year-old pregnant lady and two others, Zelenskyy said. He reported 22 individuals had been slain in the last 24 hours.
Russia, which denied targeting civilians in Tuesday’s bombings, has increased airstrikes on Ukrainian villages and cities behind the front lines of its full-fledged invasion, now in its fourth year, as it progressively advances on the battlefield. Russian military control almost a quarter of Ukrainian land.
Trump, expressing his dissatisfaction with Putin, stated on Monday that he would allow Russia 10 or 12 days to make headway towards ending the war.
The Kremlin said on Tuesday that it had “taken note” of Trump’s statement. “The special military operation continues,” said Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov, employing the term that Moscow uses for its war effort in Ukraine.
Impact Shorts
View All‘Screaming, moaning’
Following Tuesday’s attack on the prison, across the Dnipro River from Russian-occupied territory, injured inmates waded through rubble and broken glass.
Bandaged and bloody, they sat stunned as guards yelled out a roll call.
Ukraine’s justice ministry said the prison’s dining hall had been destroyed and other parts of the facility damaged in a strike that involved four high-explosive bombs and also wounded 42 people.
It had originally said 17 people were killed but later revised its tally.
“People were screaming, moaning,” said prisoner Yaroslav Samarskiy, 54, recalling the aftermath of the strike.
“Some dead, some alive, some without legs - half of them burned.”
Separately, five people were killed on Tuesday morning in the northeastern Kharkiv region after a Russian strike on a humanitarian aid point in a front-line village, a senior police official said.