Russia Ukraine latest news today: Fifteen killed and dozens trapped after Russia strikes Donetsk apartment block

Volodymyr Zelenksy compared Russian troops to Nazi murderers after strikes in Donetsk region on Sunday killed more than a dozen people and said that Ukraine will not wait long to serve punishments to Russian soldiers.

“You know, Nazi murderers are found and brought to justice even when they are 90 or 100 years old. They are caught all over the world. Of course, we don’t want to wait that long. But I give this example to show that punishment is inevitable for every Russian murderer. Absolutely everyone. Just as for the Nazis,” Mr Zelensky said in his nightly address late on Sunday.

He added that the Russian soldiers should not expect that their state will protect them. “Russia will be the first to abandon them when political circumstances change,” Mr Zelensky said.

He confirmed that he received reports from the city of Chasiv Yar in the Donetsk region. “A rescue operation is underway there after a Russian strike at residential buildings. Two high-rise buildings were destroyed. Dozens of people are under the rubble. Six were saved. There are 15 names in the list of the dead and, unfortunately, this is not the final number,” the wartime president said.

Deploring the Russian attack, Mr Zelensky said that for everyone who orders such missile strikes and everyone who carries them in residential areas “kills absolutely deliberately”.

“After such strikes, the killers will not be able to say they did not know something or did not understand something… All those who carried out this shelling, other missile strikes, all those who hit our cities with rocket artillery, as is the case with the Kharkiv region, Zaporizhzhia, Kryvyi Rih, Siversk and Vuhledar in the Donetsk region – they will all be found,” Mr Zelensky said.

A residential building was struck by a Russian missile on Monday morning in Ukraine’s Kharkiv, officials said.

The missile struck a six-storey residential building in the besieged country’s northeastern part, officials from Kharkiv’s state emergency service said, citing Suspilne news agency.

Casualties from the strike are not immediately clear.

Ukraine‘s deputy prime minister has urged civilians in the Russian-occupied southern region of Kherson to evacuate as soon as possible.

Iryna Vereshchuk said on Ukrainian television that Ukraine‘s armed forces were preparing a counter-attack in the region – but she did not say when exactly it would happen.

“It’s clear there will be fighting, there will be artillery shelling… and we therefore urge (people) to evacuate urgently,” Ms Vereshchuk said.

“I know for sure that there should not be women and children there, and that they should not become human shields.”

Ukraine lost control of most of the Black Sea region of Kherson, including its capital of the same name, in the first weeks after Russia launched its invasion on 24 February.

The Russian Federation will collapse over the coming years as a number of regions will declare sovereignty, a Ukr
ainian defence minister has predicted.

In an interview for The Times, Oleksii Reznikov said that he believes that the Russian Federation will collapse and several states will be formed in its place.

He said: “I am certain that in the next couple of years we will see multiple calls for sovereignty across the territory of the Russian Federation.

“The Russian Federation will cease existing as such. Several states will be formed in its place: Tatarstan, Bashkortostan, and so on.”

Russia carried out 34 air strikes on Ukraine in the space of a day, Volodymyr Zelensky said.

The Ukrainian president said that number of attacks took place on Saturday.

One of these attacks was an air strike on a residential block in the Donetsk town of Chasiv Yar, which killed 15 people while about 24 are feared to be trapped under rubble.

Mr Zelensky said that the number of air strikes has shown that Russia has gone against its claim earlier this week that its troops would take an “operational pause” during the ongoing war.

Russia launched hypersonic Iskander missiles on the housing block in Chasiv Yar, according to Ukraine.

Viacheslav Boitsov, deputy chief of emergency service in the Donetsk Region, said that four shells hit the neighbourhood – in the Donetsk region of eastern Ukraine – at about 9.17pm on Saturday, and that they were likely Iskander missiles.

Fifteen people died in the attack, and dozens are feared to still be trapped under the rubble. Six people have been rescued so far.

Mr Boitsov said: “There were likely four missiles. According to the experts’ preliminary evaluations, they were the Iskander missiles.

“The building that was attacked by the Russian occupiers is a dormitory; there were civilians there. There are no military facilities nearby.”

Russia has denied targeting civilians and claimed that “Ukrainian militants” were encamped in the building.

Russia’s blockade of Ukrainian ports has put the fate of the upcoming harvest in Ukraine in doubt.

The UN Food and Agriculture Organisation says the ongoing invasion is a huge threat to food supplies for many developing nations and could worsen hunger for up to 181 million people around the world.

Before Russia’s invasion, Ukraine could export up to 7 million tons of grain per month, but in June it shipped only 2.2 million tons, according to the Ukrainian Grain Association.

Meanwhile, many farmers in Ukraine could go bankrupt. They are facing the most difficult situation since gaining independence in 1991, according to the head of the association.

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The Russian invasion of Ukraine “may be one of the contributing factors” to the food shortage in Sri Lanka, US Secretary of State Antony Blinken said.

During a visit to Thailand, he said that the blocking of tens of millions of Ukrainian grain exports continues to threaten the food security people in many developing nations around the world.

Meanwhile, thousands of protesters in Sri Lanka have been occupying Gotabaya Rajapaksa’s office and presidential palace amid the ongoing political and economic crisis that is the worst the island nation has had since its independence from Britain in 1948.

Earlier this week, Mr Rajapasksa had a call with Russian president Vladimir Putin. He said he “requested an offer of credit support to import fuel” amid the severe fuel shortage that resulted in schools having to shut down for weeks.

Close relatives of troops who have died while invading Ukraine have been put under surveillance by the Russian state, according to a report.

The report by news website The New Voice of Ukraine cites the intelligence wing of the Ukrainian ministry of defence.

The family members are considered by the Russian federal security service (FSB) as prone to “the public dissemination of false information and actions to discredit the Russian Armed Forces”, according to a Ukrainian intelligence report.

The crime of “dissemination of knowingly false information” about Russian troops is punishable by a fine of up to about £10,000 or up to three years in prison.

The Russian legislation was enacted earlier this year weeks after Vladimir Putin launched his invasion of Ukraine.

Siemens said Canada’s decision to allow a turbine to be sent from its repair shop in Canada to Germany was a necessary first step towards returning it to the Russian pipeline it operates, and that it was aiming to get it there as soon as possible.

“The political export decision is a necessary and important first step for the delivery of the turbine. Currently, our experts are working intensively on all further formal approvals and logistics,” Siemens Energy said in a statement.

“Among other things, this involves legally required export and import control procedures. Our goal is to transport the turbine to its place of operation as quickly as possible,” it added.