Russia kills 27 civilians in Ukraine as the Kremlin remains defiant over Trump threats

Los Angeles Times

29-07-2025

KYIV, Ukraine — 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 27 people across the country, officials said Tuesday, despite President Trump's threat to soon punish Russia with sanctions and tariffs unless it stops.
Four powerful Russian glide bombs hit the prison in Ukraine's southeastern Zaporizhzhia region, authorities said. At least 16 inmates were killed and more than 90 wounded, Ukraine's Justice Ministry 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. At least three people were killed, including a 23-year-old pregnant woman, and two other people were killed elsewhere in the region, regional authorities said.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said overnight Russian strikes across the country hit 73 cities, towns and villages. 'These were conscious, deliberate strikes — not accidental,' Zelensky said on Telegram.
Trump said Tuesday he is giving Russian President Vladimir Putin 10 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. 8.
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.
Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said Tuesday that Russia is determined to achieve its goals in Ukraine, though he said Moscow has 'taken note' of Trump's announcement and is committed to seeking a peaceful solution.
Zelensky welcomed Trump's shortening of the deadline. 'Everyone needs peace — Ukraine, Europe, the United States and responsible leaders across the globe,' Zelensky 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 6,600 pounds of explosives.
At least 42 inmates were hospitalized because of serious injuries, and an additional 40 people, including one staff member, sustained various injuries.
The strike destroyed the prison's dining hall, and 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.
Russian forces also struck a grocery store in a village in the northeastern Kharkiv region, police said, killing five and wounding three civilians.
Authorities in the southern Kherson region reported one civilian killed and three wounded over the last 24 hours.
Alongside the barrages, Russia has also kept up its grinding war of attrition, which has slowly churned across the eastern side of Ukraine at a heavy cost in troop losses and military hardware.
The Russian Defense Ministry claimed Tuesday that Russian troops have captured the villages of Novoukrainka in the Donetsk region and Temyrivka in the Zaporizhzhia region.
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.
Officials said a cargo train was set ablaze at the Salsk station and the railway traffic via Salsk was suspended. Explosions shattered windows in two cars of a passenger train and passengers were evacuated.
Arhirova and Novikov write for the Associated Press.