VINNYTSIA, Ukraine — Russian missiles struck a city in central Ukraine on Thursday, killing at least 23 people and wounding more than 100 others, Ukrainian authorities said. Ukraine’s president alleged the attack deliberately targeted civilians in locations without military value.

Officials said Kalibr cruise missiles fired from a Russian submarine in the Black Sea struck civilian buildings in Vinnytsia, a city 167 miles southwest of the capital, Kyiv.

Vinnytsia region Gov. Serhiy Borzov said Ukrainian air defenses downed two of the four Russian missiles that were launched.

National Police Chief Ihor Klymenko said six bodies have been identified, while 39 people are still missing. Three children were among the dead. Of the 65 people hospitalized, five are in critical condition while 34 sustained severe injuries, Ukraine’s State Emergency Service said.

“There was a building of a medical organization. When the first rocket hit it, glass fell from my windows,” said Vinnytsia resident Svitlana Kubas, 74. “And when the second wave came, it was so deafening that my head is still buzzing.”

Besides hitting buildings, the missiles ignited a fire that spread to 50 cars in a parking lot, officials said.

“These are quite high-precision missiles ... They knew where they were hitting,” Borzov said.

Russia denied targeting civilians.

“Russia only strikes at military targets in Ukraine. The strike on Vinnytsia targeted an officers’ residence, where preparations by Ukrainian armed forces were underway,” Evgeny Varganov, a member of Russia’s permanent U.N. mission, said in an address to the chamber.

Margarita Simonyan, head of the state-controlled Russian television network RT, said on her messaging app channel that military officials told her a building in Vinnytsia was targeted because it housed Ukrainian “Nazis.”

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy accused Russia of intentionally aiming missiles at civilians in the country. The strike happened as government officials from about 40 countries met in The Hague, Netherlands, to discuss coordinating investigations and prosecutions of potential war crimes committed in Ukraine.

“No other country in the world represents such a terrorist threat as Russia,” Zelenskyy said in his nightly video address. “No other country in the world allows itself every day to use cruise missiles and rocket artillery to destroy cities and ordinary human life.”

He called for creating a mechanism for confiscating Russian assets around the world and using them to compensate the victims of “Russian terror.”

The U.S. Embassy in Kyiv issued a security alert late Thursday urging all U.S. citizens remaining in Ukraine to leave immediately. The alert asserted that large gatherings and organized events “may serve as Russian military targets anywhere in Ukraine, including its western regions.”

Vinnytsia is one of Ukraine’s largest cities, with a prewar population of 370,000. Thousands of people from eastern Ukraine, where Russia has concentrated its offensive, have fled there since Russia invaded Ukraine on Feb. 24.

Kateryna Popova said she saw many injured people lying on the street after the missiles struck.

Popova had fled from Kharkiv in March in search of safety in “quiet” Vinnytsia. But the missile attack changed that.

“We did not expect this. Now we feel like we don’t have a home again,” she said.

Borzov said 36 houses were damaged and residents have been evacuated, while a hotline has been set up for information on those injured or missing. July 14 will be declared a day of mourning, he said.

Ukrainian military analyst Oleh Zhdanov said the attack mirrors previous ones on residential areas that Moscow has launched “to try to pressure Kyiv to make some concessions.”

“Russia has used the same tactics when it hit the Odesa region, Kremenchuk, Chasiv Yar and other areas,” Zhdanov said. “The Kremlin wants to show that it will keep using unconventional methods of war and kill civilians in defiance of Kyiv and the entire international community.”

Before the missiles hit Vinnytsia, the president’s office reported the deaths of five civilians and the wounding of another eight in Russian attacks over the past day. One person was wounded when a missile damaged several buildings in the southern city of Mykolaiv early Thursday.

Russian forces also continued artillery and missile attacks in eastern Ukraine, primarily in Donetsk province after overtaking the nearby Luhansk region. The city of Lysychansk, the last major stronghold of Ukrainian resistance in Luhansk, fell to Russian forces this month.

Luhansk and Donetsk make up the Donbas, a mostly Russian-speaking industrial region that powered Ukraine’s economy.

Donetsk Gov. Pavlo Kyrylenko said civilians “should stop risking their lives and leave the region.”