Ukraine war briefing: Zelenskyy condemns ‘vile’ attacks from Russia that killed 20 in one apartment

The death toll from Russia’s latest attack on Ukraine has climbed to 28, its interior minister, Ivan Vyhivskyi, has said. Russia pounded Ukraine with waves of missiles and drones on Wednesday. The heaviest losses were in ⁠Pryluky, in Ukraine’s northern Chernihiv region, where ​a Russian missile obliterated a five-storey residential building. Twenty people died in the attack, including five children, said Pryluky’s regional governor, Vyacheslav Chaus. On Wednesday evening, prosecutors in Kyiv said falling debris from a drone killed two people in a suburb of the capital.

In ‌Pryluky, an excavator and dozens of rescuers with ‌shovels sifted through rubble at the site where several sections of the apartment block had collapsed. Emergency workers used ladders to get to the upper floors of what remained of the building, and as they worked their way down brought out ‌15 survivors. About 55 people were wounded in the town, regional officials said.

Volodymyr Zelenskyy called the Pryluky attack one of Russia’s “most vile”. “The Russians wanted to strike painfully and demonstratively,” the Ukrainian president said. “This was one of the most vile strikes.”

Russia’s ⁠defence ministry has said ⁠its ⁠forces struck a ⁠vessel heading ⁠to the ​Ukrainian ‌Black ‌seaport of ‌Odesa with cargo for the Ukrainian military. The ‌statement on Telegram on Wednesday gave ​no further details of the strike. The ⁠ministry also said ​Russian ​drones had ​hit ​infrastructure in ‌Ukrainian ​ports, without ​elaborating.

Bulgarian president Iliana Yotova blamed Russia’s war in Ukraine for worsening security in the Black Sea on Wednesday. Early on Tuesday, two ⁠ships were hit in ​a drone attack in Bulgaria’s Black Sea exclusive economic zone, with one sinking and the other damaged. The crew of the damaged ship were rescued but the crew of the ⁠sunken one remain missing. Yotova did not directly blame Russia, but said on Wednesday that the war had led to “a significant deterioration” in security for commercial vessels in the region. Bulgaria has halted its search for the missing ⁠crew.

European Union envoys approved 1,646 new designations under the bloc’s sanctions regime for Russia, with most focused ⁠on the country’s military industrial complex, three EU diplomats said on Wednesday. More than half of the newly added entities and individuals are involved in the ⁠chain of production of Russia’s ballistic missiles.