Russia-Ukraine war update: what we know on day 142 of the invasion

Russian missiles strike Ukrainian city of Vinnytsia, killing 23 including three children; 45 nations pledge to coordinate evidence of war crimes in Ukraine
See all our Russia-Ukraine war coverage
00:56 UTC Friday, 15 July 2022
At least 23 people, including three children, were killed and up to 66 others wounded after Russian missiles struck civilian buildings and a cultural centre in the city of Vinnytsia, in central Ukraine. The attack on Vinnytsia, far from the war’s front lines, occurred mid-morning on Thursday when the streets were full of people. Ukraine’s state emergency service says it is still searching for 39 people who are considered missing, while 34 remain in serious condition.


Ukraine’s president, Volodymyr Zelenskiy, called the Russian attack in Vinnytsia “an open act of terrorism”. In a video address at The Hague conference, Zelenskiy urged European and international criminal court officials to open a “special tribunal” to investigate Russia’s invasion of his country.


A top Ukrainian official said the missile attacks in Vinnytsia were an “approved military strategy” by Vladimir Putin. Mykhailo Podolyak, the head of Ukraine’s negotiating team and a key adviser to Zelenskiy, said Russian forces were attacking “peaceful” Ukrainian cities such as Vinnytsia, Kremenchuk, Chasiv Yar and Kharkiv in order to force Ukrainians to “peace at any price”, Podolyak wrote on Twitter. Russia’s attacks on peaceful Ukrainian cities were not a mistake but an approved military strategy


A four-year-old girl was killed in the Vinnytsia strike with social media posts charting her life and death. Footage – which the Guardian is not publishing – showed Liza Dmitrieva lying dead in her overturned pushchair. “A girl is among the dead today in Vinnytsia, she was four years old, her name was Liza. The child was four years old!” Zelenskiy said. “Her mother is in critical condition.”


The world’s largest security body has expressed “grave concern” about the alleged mistreatment of tens of thousands of Ukrainians in so-called filtration centres set up by Russia in Ukraine. Tens of thousands of civilians are taken to these centres in the self-proclaimed breakaway Donetsk People’s Republic in eastern Ukraine, before being deported to Russia, the Organisation for Security and Cooperation in Europe said.


Russia has forcibly removed nearly 2 million people from Ukraine, including more than 200,000 children, since its invasion in February, Zelenskiy said. “It is still being established how many children Russian forces abducted and took out of Ukraine … The preliminary figure is dreadful – about 200,000 children,” he told the Ukraine Accountability Conference in The Hague on Thursday.


The United States and more than 40 other countries have agreed to coordinate investigations into suspected war crimes in Ukraine. On Thursday, 45 countries including European Union states as well as Britain, the US, Canada, Mexico and Australia at a conference in The Hague signed a political declaration to work together. With some 23,000 war crimes investigations now open and different countries heading teams, evidence needed to be credible and organised, officials said.


The US treasury secretary, Janet Yellen, has said Russia’s war in Ukraine poses the greatest threat to the global economy. Representatives of Putin’s regime “have no place” at a meeting of the G20 countries in Bali, she said, adding that she would continue to press allies for a price cap on Russian oil, which she said would “deny Putin revenue his war machine needs”.


Ukraine’s infrastructure minister, Oleksandr Kubrakov, said Kyiv was “definitely a step closer” to reaching a deal to export grain through its Black Sea ports after talks with Russia, Turkey and the United Nations. Turkey earlier announced a deal with Ukraine, Russia and the UN aimed at resuming Ukrainian grain exports blocked by Russia. 


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Vladimir Putin signed into law tougher measures for individuals or entities considered “foreign agents” by Russia, as well as a new law equating defection with high treason. The new bill, which will come into force on 1 December, will broaden the definition of “foreign agents” to anyone deemed to have fallen “under foreign influence” or receiving support from abroad, not just foreign money.


Russia has begun “volunteer mobilisations” to address its soldier shortage, according to the Institute for the Study of War. In a new report, the US-based thinktank said the Kremlin had “likely ordered Russian ‘federal subjects’ (regions) to form volunteer battalions to participate in the Russian invasion of Ukraine, instead of declaring partial or full mobilisation in Russia”.



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