Russia carries out deadly air strike on Ukrainian prison

Russian glide bombs and ballistic missiles struck a Ukrainian prison and a medical facility overnight and have killed at least 27 people across the country, officials said.

Moscow has kept up its relentless pounding of civilian areas despite US President Donald Trump’s threat to punish Russia with sanctions and tariffs unless it stops.

Four powerful Russian glide bombs hit a prison in Ukraine’s south-eastern region of Zaporizhzhia, authorities said. They killed at least 16 inmates and wounded more than 90 others, Ukraine’s Justice Ministry said.

In the Dnipro region of central Ukraine, authorities said Russian missiles partially destroyed a three-storey 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, local authorities said.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said that overnight Russian strikes across the country hit 73 cities, towns and villages.

“These were conscious, deliberate strikes – not accidental,” Mr Zelensky said on Telegram.

Mr Trump said on Monday he is giving Russian President Vladimir Putin 10 to 12 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 Mr Trump wants peace efforts to make progress by August 7-9.

He has repeatedly rebuked Mr Putin for talking about ending the war but continuing to bombard Ukrainian civilians. But the Kremlin has not changed its tactics.

“I’m disappointed in President Putin,” Mr Trump said during a visit to Scotland.

Mr Zelensky welcomed Mr Trump’s move on the timeline. “Everyone needs peace — Ukraine, Europe, the United States, and responsible leaders across the globe,” Mr Zelensky said in a post on Telegram. “Everyone except Russia.”

Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said on Tuesday that Russia is determined to achieve its goals in Ukraine, though he said Moscow has “taken note” of Mr Trump’s announcement and is committed to seeking a peaceful solution.

Mr Zelensky welcomed Mr Trump’s shortening of the deadline.

“Everyone needs peace – Ukraine, Europe, the United States and responsible leaders across the globe,” Mr Zelensky wrote in a post on Telegram. “Everyone except Russia.”

The Kremlin pushed back, with a top Putin lieutenant warning Mr 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 media platform X.

“Each new ultimatum is a threat and a step towards war. Not between Russia and Ukraine, but with his own country,” Mr Medvedev said.

Since Russia’s full-scale invasion of its neighbour, 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 on 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 neutralised by Ukrainian air defences.

The Russian attack close to midnight on 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 defences. The bombs carry up to 3,000 kilograms of explosives.

At least 42 inmates were admitted to hospital with serious injuries, while another 40 people, including one staff member, sustained various injuries.

The strike destroyed the prison’s dining hall, 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.

Russian forces also struck a grocery store in a village in the north-eastern region of Kharkiv, police said, killing five and wounding three civilians.

Authorities in the southern region of Kherson reported one civilian killed and three wounded over the past 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 Defence Ministry claimed on 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 Defence Ministry said on Tuesday that air defences downed 74 Ukrainian drones over several regions overnight, including 43 over Bryansk.

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.