A Russian bombing targeting a penal colony in southeastern Ukraine killed 17 people overnight, officials reported, just hours after U.S. President Donald Trump announced plans to shorten the deadline for Vladimir Putin to reach a peace agreement.
Dozens more were wounded in the attack on the front-line Zaporizhzhia region, according to President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, who described the bombing as “deliberate”.
“The Russians could not have been unaware that they were targeting civilians in that facility,” he wrote on X.
“And this was done after a completely clear position was voiced by the United States.”
Zelenskyy added that a total of 22 people were killed in overnight strikes by Russia, including a 23-year-old pregnant woman who died in a missile strike on a hospital in another southeastern region.
Russia has stepped up airstrikes far behind the front line of its full-scale invasion, now in its fourth year, as it presses ahead on the battlefield with grinding gains.
Trump’s Deadline
Trump, underscoring his frustration with Putin, said on Monday he would give 10 or 12 days for Russia to make progress towards ending the war.
The U.S. President has threatened both sanctions on Russia and buyers of its exports unless progress is made. The fresh deadline suggests the U.S. president is prepared to move forward on those threats after previous hesitation to do so.
Speaking in Scotland, where he is holding meetings with European leaders and playing golf, Trump said he was disappointed in Putin and shortening a 50-day deadline he had set on the issue earlier this month.
“I’m going to make a new deadline of about … 10 or 12 days from today,” Trump told reporters during a meeting with British Prime Minister Keir Starmer. “There’s no reason in waiting… We just don’t see any progress being made.”
There was no immediate comment from the Kremlin.
High-Explosive Aerial Bombs
Meanwhile, in a statement, Ukraine’s justice ministry said the prison’s dining hall had been destroyed and other parts damaged in a strike that involved four high-explosive aerial bombs and wounded 42 people.
Reuters could not independently verify the report, and there was no immediate comment from Russia.
Both sides deny targeting civilians in their strikes, but thousands of civilians have been killed in the conflict, the vast majority of them Ukrainian.
(With inputs from Reuters)
