At least three people were killed and 13 wounded in a Russian missile attack on the southern Ukrainian port city of Odesa early yesterday, authorities said.
Russia fired four Kalibr missiles from a ship in the Black Sea, Serhiy Bratchuk, a spokesman for the region’s military administration, said on Telegram.
A strike on a retail chain’s warehouse killed three employees and wounded seven others, he said.
Photo: AP
“There may be people under the rubble,” he added.
Six other people were wounded after a business center, shops and a residential complex in the city center were damaged “as a result of air combat and the blast wave,” he said.
Air defenses shot down two of the missiles, the military administration said.
Odesa was a favorite holiday destination for many Ukrainians and Russians before Russian President Vladimir Putin sent troops into Ukraine in February last year.
Odesa has been bombed several times since the start of the invasion and in January UNESCO designated the historic center of the city as a World Heritage in Danger site.
Moscow has intensified its nightly attacks on major Ukrainian cities in recent weeks, while Kyiv has launched a long-awaited counteroffensive to reclaim territory occupied by Russian forces.
The latest strikes came a day after a missile attack on Kryvyi Rig, the hometown of Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy, killed 11 people.
Authorities in the southeast Dnipropetrovsk region, which includes Kryvyi Rig, also reported a fresh Russian drone attack overnight.
“All three Shaheds were shot down in the sky over the region,” regional Governor Serhiy Lysak said on Telegram, referring to the Iranian attack drones Russia uses.
While Ukraine has said it is making gains after launching its counteroffensive, Putin on Tuesday claimed his forces were inflicting “catastrophic” losses on their opponents.
Putin conceded during a Kremlin meeting that Russian forces were suffering from diminishing stockpiles of some military equipment, pointing in particular to attack drones and missiles.
Kyiv quickly fired back, saying that its push, bolstered with Western weapons and training, had “certain gains, implementing our plans, moving forward.”
According to military analysts, Ukraine has not yet committed the bulk of its forces in its counteroffensive.
It is still testing the front with probing attacks to determine weak points.
In the past few days, Kyiv has claimed to have recaptured a series of villages in its eastern Donetsk region.
“Ukrainian forces continued counteroffensive operations in at least three directions and made further limited territorial gains on June 13,” Washington-based think tank the Institute for the Study of War said in its latest analysis.
Meanwhile, International Atomic Energy Agency Director-General Rafael Grossi was expected to visit the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant yesterday.
The safety of Europe’s largest nuclear power plant, located in Ukraine’s southeastern region of Zaporizhzhia, has been a concern since Russian forces seized it over a year ago during Moscow’s war on its neighbor.
Those concerns have been exacerbated by the breach of the Kakhovka dam, which forms a reservoir that provides the cooling water for the plant.
The International Atomic Energy Agency director-general said there was “no immediate situation,” but the water level in the cooling pond was of concern.
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