Russian strike on prison kills 16, Ukraine says

A Ukrainian soldier with the 53rd Mechanized Brigade in the back of a fast-moving truck stays on the lookout for Russian drones in the city of Kostyantynivka, Ukraine, June 19, 2025. Over the past two years, the Pentagon has sent more than $66 billion in weapons, ammunition and equipment to Ukraine. (David Guttenfelder/The New York Times)

By Marc Santora

A Russian strike on a correctional facility in southern Ukraine killed at least 16 people and injured dozens more just before midnight Monday, Ukrainian officials said. It appeared to be the deadliest attack on a Ukrainian prison since Russia launched its full-scale invasion more than three years ago.

The attack was part of a wave of strikes directed at 73 Ukrainian cities and villages over Monday night and Tuesday morning, President Volodymyr Zelenskyy of Ukraine said in a statement. It came only hours after President Donald Trump renewed his call for the Kremlin to end the bloodshed.

On Monday, Trump expressed frustration with Russia’s persistent targeting of civilians and the staggering battlefield losses on both sides.

He said he would give Russian President Vladimir Putin 10 to 12 days to show a serious commitment to a ceasefire before imposing broad sanctions, including measures that would limit the Kremlin’s ability to finance its war through oil exports.

Previously, Trump gave Moscow 50 days to change course.

Officials in Moscow largely waved off the threat, and the Russian military showed no signs of slowing its offensive campaign on the front or its increasingly deadly daily bombardments.

Around the same time the prison was attacked, a ballistic missile struck a hospital complex and maternity ward in Kamianske, in the Dnipro region, Ukrainian officials said.

“Three people died from this strike, including a pregnant woman,” Zelenskyy said. “Her name was Diana. She was only 23 years old.”

Overall, at least 22 civilians were killed and 85 people injured in the attacks Monday night and Tuesday morning, Zelenskyy said.

Later Tuesday, five more civilians were killed when the Russians shelled a location where people had gathered to receive humanitarian aid near the town of Izium, according to Ukraine’s State Emergency Service.

Zelenskyy thanked Trump for his “determination to achieve peace” and said, “Moscow deserves very tough, truly painful and therefore fair and effective sanctions pressure.”

Dmitry Peskov, the Kremlin spokesperson, rejected the statement that Russia had targeted civilians.

“Strikes are carried out on military and quasimilitary infrastructure,” he told reporters, according to Russian news agency TASS.

The day’s attacks were part of an escalating pattern of violence in Ukraine.

According to the United Nations Human Rights Monitoring Mission in Ukraine, June had the highest monthly civilian casualties in three years, with 232 people killed and 1,343 injured. In the first half of the year alone, the U.N. reported that more than 6,700 civilians had been killed or injured in Russian strikes.

As Russia has intensified the pace of its attacks, it has continued to increase production of long-range strike drones and missiles, with the German Defense Ministry warning that Russia is working toward the ability to attack Ukraine with 2,000 long-range drones simultaneously.

The drones are often launched in coordination with cruise and ballistic missiles, aiming to overwhelm Ukrainian air defenses.

Russia also has vast stockpiles of inexpensive munitions that can be fitted with wings and guidance systems, allowing pilots to release them from Russian-controlled airspace to hit targets dozens of miles away.

The Bilenkivska correctional facility in Zaporizhzhia was hit by four FAB-500 bombs, each weighing approximately 1,100 pounds, Ukrainian officials said.

Ukrainian officials noted that the strike occurred three years to the day after an explosion at the Olenivka penal colony that killed more than 50 Ukrainian prisoners of war.

Russia has consistently denied responsibility for the massacre at Olenivka but has refused access to international experts and forensic investigators.

Kyiv has compiled evidence implicating Moscow, a charge supported by human rights groups, investigations by independent news outlets and testimony from prisoners of war who have returned to Ukraine.

Ukrainians commemorated the Olenivka massacre and the deaths of other prisoners of war Monday with solemn memorials across the country.

Speaking a few hours before the strike on the prison, Zelenskyy declared July 28 an official day of remembrance for “those who were executed or tortured in Russian captivity, in Russian prisons, in Russian camps and on the front line.”