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Russia hits Ukraine’s biggest cities with deadly missile attack as Moscow blames U.S. for diplomatic deadlock
More than 40 Russian missiles slammed into Ukraine’s two largest cities Tuesday morning, killing at least six people and leaving 60 more wounded, according to Ukrainian officials, as Moscow again dismissed any diplomatic resolution to the two-year war backed by Kyiv and its Western supporters. The Russian missiles targeted Ukraine’s capital Kyiv and Kharkiv, damaging about 30 residential buildings in the latter and shattering around 1,000 apartment windows, leaving residents exposed to frigid winter weather, regional Gov. Oleh Syniehubov said.
Mayor Ihor Terekhov of Kharkiv, which is only about 18 miles from the eastern border with Russia, was quoted by the French news agency AFP as saying an entire section of a multi-floor apartment building was toppled and an unknown number of people left trapped under the rubble.
SERGEY BOBOK/AFP/Getty
Russia’s Ministry of Defense claimed the strikes carried out Tuesday had hit Ukrainian military production facilities, and that all intended targets had been struck successfully.
The latest missile strikes came after months of grueling trench and artillery warfare along the nearly 1,000-mile front line that stretches from the northern to the southern border of eastern Ukraine. They also came a day after Russian officials said Ukrainian drones had struck an oil storage facility in the Russian region of Bryansk, about 40 miles from the border, causing a massive blaze.
The front line has barely moved in a year, and both sides’ inability to dislodge the other has been matched by their unwillingness to budge on their key negotiating points.
Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov, a veteran diplomat close to President Vladimir Putin, again rejected on Monday any negotiations for a truce within the parameters put forward by Ukraine at the U.N., backed by the U.S., which include a full withdrawal of Russian troops from Ukrainian territory and a cessation of hostilities.
Lavrov blames U.S. for diplomatic deadlock
Lavrov, in New York for U.N. meetings on Ukraine and the Middle East, in an exclusive interview with CBS News on Monday, reiterated Moscow’s long-standing claim that it is the U.S. and its close allies that are preventing a resolution to the war Russia started with its Feb. 24, 2022 full-scale invasion of Ukraine.
“The current administration is not interested in having any dialogue, except from time to time on issues of the detainees, exchanges, functioning of the two embassies in Washington and in Moscow and the mission in New York, but not on any policy matters,” insisted Lavrov. He complained that Russia was being treated unfairly by Washington and said if the U.S. would halt what he called its “policy of using Ukraine as an instrument of war against Russia, we would be ready to listen.”
Lavrov repeated Moscow’s frequent claim that the U.S. government “demonizes Russia” and, asked why more than 140 nations voted in the U.N. General Assembly to condemn Russia for violating Ukrainian sovereignty with its ongoing 2022 invasion, Lavrov said all the countries that voted against Russia were pressured “by the U.S., the Brits, and some Europeans.”
During Monday’s Security Council meeting on Ukraine, Kyiv’s Ambassador, Sergiy Kyslytsya, told delegates his country’s security was “an integral part of world and regional security,” calling Russia’s invasion one of the primary “destabilizing factors for security in the world.”
U.S. deputy U.N. Ambassador Robert Wood said it was Putin’s “single-minded pursuit of the obliteration of Ukraine and subjugation of its people that is prolonging” the war.
SPRINGFIELD, Ill. — The U.S. Justice Department is demanding records related to the July shooting death of Sonya Massey — an Illinois woman who was killed in her home by a sheriff’s deputy — as it investigates how local authorities treat Black residents and people with behavioral disabilities.
The government made a list of demands in dozens of categories in a letter to the Sangamon County Sheriff’s Office, dated Thursday.
“The Sheriff’s Office, along with involved county agencies, has engaged in discussions and pledged full cooperation with the Department of Justice in its review,” Sangamon County Sheriff Paula Crouch said Friday.
Sonya Massey, a 36-year-old Black woman, was killed July 6 when deputies responded to a call about a possible prowler at her home in Springfield, Illinois. She was shot three times during a confrontation with an officer.
The alleged shooter, Sean Grayson, who is White, was fired. He is charged with murder and other crimes and has pleaded not guilty.
“The Justice Department, among other requests, wants to know if the sheriff’s office has strategies for responding to people in “behavioral health crises,” the government’s letter read. “…The incident raises serious concerns about…interactions with Black people and people with behavioral health disabilities.”
Andy Van Meter, chairman of the Sangamon County Board, said the Justice Department’s review is an important step in strengthening the public’s trust in the sheriff’s office.
At the time of the fatal shooting, the Sangamon County Sheriff’s Office was led by then-Sheriff Jack Campbell, who retired in August and was replaced by Crouch.
Deputy Sean Grayson’s history of misconduct
Grayson has worked for six different law enforcement agencies in Illinois since 2020, CBS News learned. He was also discharged from the Army in February 2016 after serving for about 19 months. He was hired by the Sangamon County Sheriff’s Office in May 2023.
In an interview with CBS News in early August, Campbell said that Grayson “had all the training he needed. He just didn’t use it.”
In a recording released by the Logan County Sheriff’s Office, where Grayson worked from May 2022 to April 2023, a supervising officer is heard warning Grayson for what the senior officer said was his lack of integrity, for lying in his reports, and for what he called “official misconduct.”
Girard Police Chief Wayman Meredith recalled an alleged incident in 2023 when he said an enraged Grayson was pressuring him to call child protective services on a woman outside of Grayson’s mother’s home. He said Grayson was “acting like a bully.”
The recording and Meredith’s description of Grayson’s conduct showed how he quickly became angry and, according to documents, willing to abuse his power as an officer.
Sangamon County Sheriff’s Office history of accusations
According to a review of court records in 2007, Massey’s killing was the only criminal case in recent history against a Sangamon County Sheriff’s Office deputy for actions on duty. Local officials characterized her shooting as an aberration.
However, CBS News obtained thousands of pages of law enforcement files, medical and court records, as well as photo and video evidence that indicated the office had a history of misconduct allegations and accountability failures before Grayson. The records challenged the claim that Massey’s death was, as said by the then-sheriff, an isolated incident by one “rogue individual.”
Local families were confident that Massey’s death was the latest in a pattern of brazen abuse that has gone unchecked for years.
Attorneys for Massey’s family recommended an updated SAFE-T Act that would expand an existing database used to track officer misconduct to include infractions like DUIs and speeding during police chases.
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