Vinnytsia, Ukraine
Reuters
A Ukrainian city far from the frontline grieved its dead including a four-year-old girl with Down’s Syndrome, while Russian missiles continued to rain on other cities across the country.
Late on Friday, Russian missiles hit Dnipro, killing three people and wounding 15 others, the local Governor said on Telegram. Rockets hit an industrial plant and a street next to it, he said. Footage on social media showed thick black smoke rising from the buildings and burning cars.
A view shows a building of a civil infrastructure damaged by a Russian missile strike, as Russia’s attack on Ukraine continues, in Vinnytsia, Ukraine on 15th July. PICTURE: Reuters/Stringer
“Right now, as I am writing this address, there is an air alarm over almost the entire territory of our state. There is preliminary information about hits – Dnipro, Kremenchuk, Kyiv region,” Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said in a Telegram post.
ONLINE POSTS SHOW SUNNY LIFE OF GIRL KILLED IN RUSSIAN STRIKE
A shy smile, a sunny day – a moment in the life of four-year-old Liza Dmitrieva posted online shortly before she was killed in a Russian missile strike on the central Ukrainian city of Vinnytsia.
The short burst of video shows her pushing a stroller and happily responding to her mother Iryna, who was severely injured in Thursday’s attack which took place miles from the front lines.
Ukraine condemned the strike as a war crime, saying it had killed at least 23 people, including Liza and two other children, and wounded scores. Russia’s Defence Ministry said it hit a military target.
Liza Dmitrieva, a four-year-old who died in a Russian missile strike, is pictured in Vinnytsia, Ukraine in this undated handout image. PICTURE: LogoClub Children’s Center/Handout via Reuters
Doctors said on Friday they had decided for now not to tell Iryna about her daughter’s death, fearing the news would kill her.
But beyond the hospital, the images and footage of Liza on her mother’s Instagram account – set next to news footage of the same pushchair knocked on its aide amid the rubble of the blast – quickly went viral and became a focus of anger and grief.
“Where are we going?” Iryna Dmitrieva is heard asking in the video in a sing-song voice, as they stride along side-by-side.
“To see Alla?,” she asks again as the little girl, who had Down’s Syndrome, nods cheerfully in agreement.
After the attack, the city’s LOGO Club Children’s Center posted a tribute to the girl they called “Sunny Flower”.
“Together we learned to say the first sounds, the first words,” they wrote on Facebook. “Lizochka,” they added, using a diminutive form of her name, “today you became a ray of sun”.
Staff there said that she had especially loved blowing into foam and using a special necklace as part of her speech therapy.
Valeria Korol, a speech therapist at the centre, said Liza had been very clever. Her mum took great care of her, she gave the little girl all her heart, soul and love. Her fantastic achievements made her mum and her family very happy.”
Doctors at Vinnytsia Emergency Hospital said Iryna Dmitrieva was severely injured, and any bad news could be too much for her.
“Were she told about this [the death of her daughter] now, we would lose her,” chief doctor Oleksandr Fomin told Reuters.
“That is why we have created full information barrier around her. So when she asks for a phone, all doctors, nurses, medics say they have been forbidden to use phones at work.”
President Volodymyr Zelenskiy’s wife, Olena, tweeted that she recognised the girl, who had once been among a group of children who painted Christmas ornaments with the first lady in a holiday video.
“Look at her, alive, please,” Olena Zelenska wrote.
Ukraine said Thursday’s strike on an office building in Vinnytsia, a city of 370,000 people about 200 kilometres south-west of Kyiv, had been carried out with Kalibr cruise missiles launched from a Russian submarine in the Black Sea.
Kyiv said the attack killed at least 23 people and wounded scores.
The missiles destroyed a nearby medical centre and some people arriving for treatment were burnt alive in their cars outside, the owner of the center said. Two doctors were severely wounded.
The attack was the latest in a series of Russian hits in recent weeks using long-range missiles on crowded buildings in cities far from the front, each killing dozens of people.
Residents placed teddy bears and flowers at a makeshift memorial.
Among the dead was Liza, a four-year-old girl with Down’s Syndrome, found in the debris next to a pram. Images of her pushing the same pram, posted by her mother on a blog less than two hours before the attack, quickly went viral.
Her severely injured mother, Iryna Dmitrieva, was being kept in an information blackout at a hospital for fear that finding out about her daughter would kill her, doctors said.
“She is suffering from burns, chest injuries, abdominal injuries, liver and spleen injuries. We have stitched the organs together, the bones were crushed as if she went through a meat grinder,” Oleksandr Fomin, chief doctor at the Vinnytsia Emergency Hospital, said. Were she told of her daughter’s death, “we would lose her”.
The building housed an officers’ club, which Russia’s defence ministry said was being used for a meeting between military officials and foreign arms suppliers. It added: “The attack resulted in the elimination of the participants.”
Ukraine said the club functioned as a cultural centre. The building also housed shops, commercial offices and a concert hall, where musicians were rehearsing for a pop concert planned for that night.
Authorities in the southern city of Mykolaiv, closer to the frontlines, also reported fresh strikes on Friday which wounded at least two people.
Grain progress
Despite the bloodshed, both sides have described progress towards an agreement to lift a blockade restricting the export of Ukrainian grain. Mediator Turkey has said a deal could be signed next week.
Asked if that timeline was realistic, a senior Ukrainian official told Reuters: “We really hope so. We’re hurrying as fast as we can.” The source asked not to be identified.
Russia’s defence ministry said an agreement was close. Russia’s negotiator cautioned that a grains deal will not lead to a resumption of peace talks.
A deal would probably involve inspections of vessels to ensure Ukraine was not bringing in arms and guarantees from Western countries that Russia’s own food exports are exempt from sanctions.
Moscow welcomed a written clarification by Washington on Thursday that banks, insurers and shippers would not be targeted by sanctions for facilitating shipments of Russian grain and fertiliser.
The war dominated a meeting of G20 finance ministers in Indonesia on Friday. The conflict involving two of the world’s top grain exporters and one of its main oil and gas producers is causing global shortages of food and energy, inflation, financial crisis and, potentially, hunger.
“By starting this war, Russia is solely responsible for negative spillovers to the global economy, particularly higher commodity prices,” US Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen said.
Canadian Finance Minister Chrystia Freeland told Russian officials at the meeting that she held them personally responsible for “war crimes”, a Western official told Reuters.
Russia calls its 24th February intervention a “special military operation” to disarm Ukraine and root out nationalists. Kyiv and its allies call it an attempt to reconquer a country which broke free of Moscow’s rule in 1991.
The stepped-up Russian attacks on cities far from the front come at a time when momentum appears to be shifting after weeks of Russian gains.
An aerial view shows a building of the House of Officers heavily damaged by a Russian missile strike, as Russia’s attack on Ukraine continues, in Vinnytsia, Ukraine, on 15th July. PICTURE: Reuters/Stringer
Since capturing the eastern industrial cities of Sievierodonetsk and Lysychansk in battles that killed thousands of troops on both sides, Russia has paused. A Ukrainian general said Kyiv had not lost “a single metre” of territory in a week.
Ukraine has meanwhile unleashed new HIMARS rocket systems received from the United States, striking targets deep in Russian-held territory. It appears to have blown up depots of ammunition Moscow relies on for massive artillery barrages.
The first M270 systems that will give Ukraine additional multi-rocket firepower have arrived in the country, Ukraine’s defence minister said on Friday. Russia fired its own multi-launch rocket system at Sloviansk on Friday, the eastern city’s mayor said.
Ukraine says it is preparing a counter-attack in coming weeks to recapture a swath of southern territory near the Black Sea coast.
– With reporting from Reuters bureaux.
