Ukraine and Russia: What you need to know right now

(Reuters) – Russian missiles struck the Ukrainian city of Vinnytsia far behind the frontlines on Thursday in an attack which Ukrainian officials said had left at least 20 people dead.

ECONOMY/DIPLOMACY

* A top Russian official said on Thursday that Moscow would respond positively should Kyiv be ready to resume peace negotiations, but that Ukraine must accept the “territorial realities” of the situation, the Interfax news agency reported.

* Russia’s foreign ministry on Thursday attacked the United States and Britain for helping train Ukraine’s armed forces, calling it part of “hybrid warfare” being waged by NATO countries against Russia.

* U.S. Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen on Thursday said Russian President Vladimir Putin’s war against Ukraine was causing a negative spillover around the world and Russian officials had no place at this week’s meeting of the Group of 20 major economies in Indonesia.

* The United States called on Russia to release Ukrainians it has forced out of their home country and allow outside observers, citing reports Moscow was putting Ukrainian children up for adoption and “disappearing” thousands of others.

* Ukraine’s top war crimes prosecutor and European judicial authorities met on Thursday to coordinate investigations into atrocities during Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, warning that a failure to do so would embolden autocrats.

FIGHTING

* Russian missiles on Thursday hit two community facilities in the west of Ukraine, killing 20 people and wounding many more, Ukraine’s president Volodymyr Zelenskiy told an international conference aimed at prosecuting war crimes committed in Ukraine.

* Ukrainian forces hit two military checkpoints and a landing pad on Thursday in the second strike this week on a Russian-held area in southern Ukraine, Ukrainian officials said. The attack on Nova Kakhovka in the Kherson region killed 13 “occupiers”, Serhiy Bratchuk, spokesperson for the Odesa regional administration, quoted the Operational Command South as saying. He cited no evidence for the death toll.

* Reuters could not independently verify the battlefield accounts.

(Compiled by Nick Macfie)