Russia-Ukraine updates: Putin says war was ‘unleashed’ on Russia

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy condemned a Russian missile strike on Sunday in the eastern Ukraine city of Kostiantynivka that killed six people and injured at least 11.

In an address to his country Sunday night, Zelenskyy called Russia an "evil state" for targeting residential buildings in Kostiantynivka with long-range missiles.

"The evil state must be defeated," Zelenskyy said.

Kostiantynivka, which is close to Bakhmut, is being used as a second-line staging area for Ukrainian troops holding the line on that part of the front.

Zelenskyy said the fighting in Bakhmut was "especially hot" on Sunday.

He predicted a day would come when Ukraine will "celebrate the last Russians being killed or driven out of currently Russian occupied territories, including Donetsk, Luhansk and Kherson Oblasts, as well as Crimea."

-ABC News' Edward Szekeres

A top Russian pro-war blogger has been killed in a bomb attack on a cafe in Russia, according to police.

The explosion on Sunday tore through a cafe in St. Petersburg, killing Vladlen Tatarsky, one of the best-known of the Russian military bloggers who have become influential during the war in Ukraine.

At least 30 other people were injured in the blast, according to the Ministry of Health. Video circulating online appeared to capture the aftermath, showing bloodied people emerging from the heavily damaged cafe.

The Russian Interior Ministry said an explosion has occurred in a cafe on the city's Universitetskaya Embankment.

"One person was killed in the incident, it was military correspondent Vladlen Tatarsky, the Russian Interior Ministry press center told reporters on Sunday.

Denis Pushilin, acting head of the Russian-backed Donetsk People’s Republic, issued a statement describing Tatarsky as "a great patriot" of the Donbass region of eastern Ukraine and Russia. Pushilin blamed the attack on the Kyiv regime, calling it a terrorist regime.

"A man with a difficult fate, Vladlen earned the respect of his comrades-in-arms because he lived and worked for the sake of truth and justice, for the sake of victory," Pushilin said of Tatarsky. "He managed to fight, and in the status of a military correspondent to make his contribution."

Pushilin said Tatarsky was to be awarded a medal "for the liberation of Mariupol" in eastern Ukraine.

It was the most serious bomb attack on a pro-war Russian figure inside Russia since the high-profile assassination of the Daria Dugina, the daughter of the ultra-nationalist Alexander Dugina, who was killed in a car bombing last year.

Tatarsky was a Russian ultra-nationalist and one of the best-known military bloggers, who strongly supported the war in Ukraine. He had also criticized the execution of the war by Russia’s military command.

Tatarsky had become a significant source of information for how the war was being fought on the Russian side.

His killing will likely set off speculation on whether Ukraine or Russia was behind his killing, similar to the Dugina episode.

In the Dugina case, U.S. intelligence sources eventually told The New York Times that Ukraine was behind the attack.

-News Patrick Reevell

At least six civilians were killed and eight others were injured Sunday when Russian missiles slammed into houses and apartment buildings in an eastern Ukrainian city, Ukrainian officials said.

The attack occurred in downtown Kostiantynivka, a city in the Donetsk region of eastern Ukraine, the site of the war’s fiercest fighting.

Andriy Yermak, deputy head of the Ukrainian Presidential Office, said at least six people were killed in the attack.

Three Russian S-300 long-range missiles and four other rockets hit homes and apartment buildings in Kostiantynivka, according to Pavlo Kyrylenko, the regional governor.

Kostiantynivka is about eight miles west of the embattled town of Bakhmut, currently the main hotspot of the war.

-ABC News' Tatiana Rymarenko

U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken urged the Kremlin to release imprisoned Wall Street Journal reporter Evan Gershkovich in a phone call Sunday with his Russian counterpart, according to a State Department spokesperson.

Blinken spoke with Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov, conveying the United States' "grave concern" over the "unacceptable detention" of a U.S. citizen, according to Vedant Patel, a deputy spokesperson for the State Department.

"The secretary called for his immediate release. Secretary Blinken further urged the Kremlin to immediately release wrongfully detained U.S. citizen Paul Whelan," said Patel, referring to the American held in Russia on espionage charges since 2018.

According to a read out of the phone call released by the Kremlin, Lavrov emphasized that Gershkovich "was taken red-handed while trying to obtain classified information, collecting data constituting a state secret under the guise of journalistic status."

"In the light of the established facts of illegal activity of a U.S. citizen, of whose detention the U.S. Embassy in Moscow was notified in accordance with the established procedure, his further fate will be determined by the court," the Kremlin said in a statement.

The Kremlin said that during the conversation, Lavrov emphasized officials in Washington and the Western media are "escalating the hype with the clear intention of giving this case a political coloring."

Blinken and Lavrov also spoke of the "importance of creating an environment that permits diplomatic missions to carry out their work," according to Patel.