A deadly Russian strike on a sleepy provincial capital

Compiled by Our Foreign CORRESPONDENT Published, Friday, July 15, 2022 VINNYTSIA, Ukraine — A volley of Russian cruise missiles hit a shopping center, a dance studio and a wedding hall in central Ukraine on Thursday, killing at least 23 people and setting off a frantic search for dozens more lost in the rubble, in a latest strike to hit a civilian area far from the front lines. Three children were among the dead, President Volodymyr Zelensky’s office said. The attack involved three Kalibr cruise missiles that struck the city at about 10:30 a.m. and were launched from a submarine in the Black Sea, his office said. More than 70 people, including three children, were hospitalized after the missiles hit the center of Vinnytsia, a typically sleepy provincial capital some 200 miles from the coast, and left behind a harrowing scene of smoking ruins. Grooms once carried their brides from the wedding hall, a well-known local landmark, and a building next door was the site of a photography studio where a continual stream of children had their pictures taken for school albums. Even hours after the strike, as firefighters doused water on the smoldering husks of overturned cars, bystanders stood by in shock. The Ukrainian State Emergency Service said more than two dozen people remained unaccounted for as of late Thursday. It said a search effort was underway in the rubble in a part of town where people typically ran errands at the shopping center to buy household goods or attended celebrations at the wedding hall.