Russian missile strike on Kramatorsk city centre

Russian missiles rained down on the centre of the eastern Ukrainian city of Kramatorsk on Tuesday, its regional governor said. 

At least one person was killed when a five-story residential building was hit in an attack, which caused loud explosions and fire in the civilian area, claimed Pavlo Kyrylenko, governor of the Donetsk region. 

“There was no one here. Everything is ruined,” the resident of one burned apartment, Halyna Maydannyk, told reporters. “Who knows why they’re doing this? We were all living peacefully.”

The strike happened around midday according to Kyrylenko, who earlier on Tuesday reported four other Russian strikes in Kramatorsk and urged civilians to evacuate from the city. 

Ukrainian officials have said they expect Kramatorsk, populated by more than 150,000 people before the Russian invasion in February, to become one of the main focuses of Russia's offensive in eastern Ukraine.

Russia has previously denied targetting civilians and has not commented on the situation in Kramatorsk. 

Since its failed attempt to seize the Ukrainian capital Kyiv at the beginning of the invasion, Russia has changed its military tactics and is now using devastating, grinding bombardments to capture territory in Ukraine's south and east.

Ukraine claims that more civilians have died because long-range attacks on targets far away from Russian forces have intensified, yet Moscow maintains it is only hitting military targets, not civilians. 

US steps up sanctions to free captives, after high-profile Russia detention

Joe Biden passed sanctions on Tuesday against states that unjustly imprison US citizens, following a series of detentions in Russia that have caught the media's attention.

The US president's move follows the high-profile detention by the Russian government of basketball superstar Brittney Griner, whose partner has claimed Biden is not putting enough effort in to make her free. 

Biden's executive order allows US state agencies to slap financial sanctions or travel bans on foreign officials or non-state actors implicated in the unjust and politically-motivated detentions of US citizens. 

“Using sanctions does not always get someone released, so we will be judicious and strategic in our use of that authority,” a US official told reporters on condition of anonymity.