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Vinnytsia missile strikes on 14 July 2022
Summary
A look back at the day three Russian missiles hit Vinnytsia, and at the security developments in the days just before it.
What happened in Ukraine on 14 July 2022, and what had led up to it? That day, three Russian missile strikes hit the city of Vinnytsia, killing at least 23 civilians and injuring more than 100 others, as reported at the time.
The death toll was later put higher. Background accounts written afterwards give a figure of 28 dead, including three children. They also record that the attack drew widespread condemnation and that EU officials labelled it a war crime.
The days before
The strike followed a week of intense fighting elsewhere. On 13 July 2022, heavy Russian shelling was reported in Bakhmut, in Donetsk Oblast. At least one person was killed and five others were injured in a town that had been largely evacuated.
On 12 July 2022, a massive explosion hit Nova Kakhovka after Ukrainian forces destroyed a Russian arms depot. The Russian state news agency TASS claimed that a market, a hospital and civilian housing were also damaged and that several civilians were killed. Russian 22nd Army Corps general Artem Nasbulin was allegedly among the dead. Background accounts say the attack was launched on 11 July 2022. Russia said Ukraine had used HIMARS missiles, which Ukraine had recently acquired from the United States.
Drones and Kaliningrad
Two other developments that week bore on regional security. On 12 July 2022, US National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan claimed that Iran would give Russia hundreds of drones, along with the training needed to use them.
On 13 July 2022, the European Commission allowed Russia to resume shipping embargoed goods by rail to its exclave of Kaliningrad, following Russian threats against Lithuania. The transit of military equipment through Lithuanian territory remained prohibited.
The picture on 14 July 2022
Taken together, the reports from those days show a war fought on several fronts. There was shelling in the Donbas, a Ukrainian strike on an occupied city in the south, and diplomatic friction over transit to Kaliningrad. Alongside these were warnings about Iranian drones. The Vinnytsia strikes, far from the front lines, ended the period with the largest civilian toll of the days covered here.
