21 people in Ukraine killed by Russian artillery that destroyed school

A couple of Ukrainian soldiers walks hand in hand amid Russian invasion of Ukraine in Kyiv. Picture: SERGEI SUPINSKY/AFP via Getty Images

Twenty-one people have been killed by Russian artillery that destroyed a school and a community centre in Merefa, near the northeast city of Kharkiv, officials said.

Merefa Mayor Veniamin Sitov said the attack occurred just before dawn on Thursday.

The Kharkiv region has seen heavy bombardment as stalled Russian forces try to advance in the area.

In the city of Chernihiv, northeast of Kyiv, Ukraine’s emergency service says a hostel was shelled, killing a mother, father and three of their children, including 3-year-old twins.

Russian forces in Ukraine are blasting cities and killing civilians but no longer making progress on the ground, Western countries said on Thursday, as a war Moscow was thought to have hoped to win within days entered its fourth week.

Viacheslav Chaus, governor of Chernihiv, said 53 civilians had been killed there in the past 24 hours. The toll could not be independently verified.

In the capital Kyiv, a building in the Darnytsky district was extensively damaged by what the authorities said was debris from a missile shot down early in the morning.

As residents cleared glass and carried bags of possessions away, a man knelt weeping by the body of a woman which lay close to a doorway, covered in a bloody sheet.

The New York Times has reported that the Pentagon estimates that more than 7,000 Russian troops have been killed since the start of the war three weeks ago — more than all American troops killed in 20 years of war in Iraq and Afghanistan combined.

British military intelligence said in an update on Thursday that the invasion had "largely stalled on all fronts", and Russian forces were suffering heavy losses from a staunch and well-coordinated Ukrainian resistance.

Russia has assaulted Ukraine from four directions, sending two massive columns towards Kyiv from the northwest and northeast, pushing in from the east near the second biggest city Kharkiv, and spreading in the south from Crimea.

Northeastern and northwestern suburbs of Kyiv have been reduced to rubble by heavy fighting, but the capital itself has held firm, under a curfew and subjected to deadly nightly rocket attacks.

Elsewhere, foreign ministers from the Group of Seven leading economies are calling on Russia to comply with the International Court of Justice’s order to stop its attack on Ukraine and withdraw its military forces.

In a joint statement, the G-7′s top diplomats condemned what they described as “indiscriminate attacks on civilians” by Russian forces including the siege of Mariupol and other cities.

Meanwhile, a UN agency has warned that the conflict in Ukraine is likely to hinder access to food and fuel for many of the world’s most vulnerable people.

A report by the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development notes that Russia accounted for nearly a third of wheat imports for Africa, or $3.7bn, in 2018-2020, while 12%, worth $1.4bn, came from Ukraine.

The report said initial assessments point to a “substantive reduction” in access to food and fuel despite efforts to prevent the disruption to supplies of key commodities such as wheat.

Meanwhile, rising costs for shipping and for grains and other staple foods is pushing prices higher, hitting poorest people the hardest, the report says.

The report said up to 25 African countries, especially the least developed economies, relied on wheat imports from Russia and Ukraine.

The lack of spare capacity in Africa limits the ability of those countries to offset any lost supplies, while surging costs for fertiliser will be an extra burden for farmers.