RESCUE WORKERS ARE digging through debris a day after Russian missiles tore through Vinnytsia in central Ukraine, killing at least 23 people.

Russia claims the strikes – hundreds of kilometres from the front lines – had targeted a meeting of Ukrainian military officials and foreign arms suppliers.

“No other state in the world poses such a terrorist threat as Russia,” Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky responds late Thursday, warning the death toll is likely to rise.

Moscow-backed troops in the Donbas region in eastern Ukraine say they are closing in on their next target, after wresting control of sister cities Lysychansk and Severodonetsk two weeks ago.

“Siversk is under our operational control, which means that the enemy can be hit by our aimed fire all over the area,” a pro-Moscow rebel official is cited as saying by Russian state-run news agency TASS.

Western finance ministers on the island of Bali for two-day G20 talks have condemned Moscow’s invasion of Ukraine, accusing Russian officials of complicity in atrocities committed during the war.

“Russia is solely responsible for negative spillovers to the global economy,” US Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen tells the Russian delegation in the opening session.

She is joined by Canadian Finance Minister Chrystia Freeland, who tells Russia’s delegation they are responsible for “war crimes” in Ukraine because of their support for the invasion.

Grain deal

Russia’s defence ministry says that a “final document” designed to unblock grain exports from Ukrainian ports will be ready “soon”, following negotiations with Kyiv in Istanbul this week.

Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in February has disrupted the export of grain form ports in Ukraine, which is one of the world’s largest wheat exporters, worsening a food crisis around the world.

© AFP 2022