Ukrainian rescue teams hunt for survivors in Vinnytsia

VINNYTSIA, Ukraine (AP) — Rescue teams with sniffer dogs combed through debris in a central Ukrainian city on Friday looking for people still missing after a Russian missile strike a day earlier that killed at least 23 people.

Russian forces, meanwhile, pounded other sites in a painstaking push to wrest territory from Ukraine and try to soften unbending morale of its leaders, civilians and troops as the war nears the five-month mark.

The cruise missile strikes on Vinnytsia launched by a Russian submarine on Thursday were the latest incidents to take civilian lives and fan international outrage since President Vladimir Putin launched the invasion on Feb. 24. The campaign now has been focusing on Ukraine's eastern Donbas region, but Russian forces regularly fire upon targets in many parts of the country too.

Ukraine's Interior Ministry claimed Friday that Russian forces had conducted more than 17,000 strikes on civilian targets during the war, driving millions from their homes, killing thousands of fighters and civilians and rippling through the world economy by hiking prices and crimping exports of key Ukrainian and Russian products like foodstuffs, fuel and fertilizer.

More than 73 people — including four children — remained hospitalized and 18 people were missing after Thursday's missile strike, said Oleksandr Kutovyi, spokesman for the emergency service in the Vinnytsia region. Search teams were poring over two sites on Friday — an office building with a medical center inside, and a concert hall near an outdoor recreation area and park, where mothers with children often stroll.

Vinnytsia Gov. Serhiy Borzov said only 10 people among the nearly two dozen killed had been identified so far.

“Russia deliberately hit civilians and all those responsible for the crime must...