Ukraine: at least 14 dead in one of the deadliest Russian attacks in Odessa

At least 14 people were killed. killed and nearly fifty injured Friday in one of the worst Russian missile attacks on Odessa, a large port city in southern Ukraine that has already been damaged. targeted twice in recent days.

“A Russian missile attack left 14 dead, including residents, a paramedic and a rescue worker,” regional governor Oleg Kiper said on Telegram.

The town hall declared a day of mourning on Saturday following this attack, one of the deadliest on Odessa since the start of the Russian invasion two years ago.

The missile strike, in broad daylight, left 46 injured, including seven emergency services employees, he added. Residential buildings and vehicles were hit, according to the Ukrainian prosecutor's office.

According to the Ukrainian emergency services, these are two consecutive strikes on the same site.

The body of a person killed by a Russian missile strike on March 15, 2024 in Odessa, southern Ukraine © AFP – Oleksandr GIMANOV

A first Russian missile attack on the city damaged civilian infrastructure and caused a fire, rescuers arrived on the site and began to “extinguish the fire, clear the rubble and search for victims” when “the enemy launched another missile attack,” the emergency service said.

In images released by the Ukrainian emergency services, we can see injured rescuers, their faces stained and their clothes torn, being helped by their colleagues.< /p>

– Three strikes since March –

This is the third deadly attack on Odessa since the beginning of March.

On March 3, a drone strike on an apartment building killed 12 people, including 5 children, and on March 6 a bombing killed five people, at a time when Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky and Greek Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis were traveling in the city.

In recent months, Russia has increased attacks on the city and its port, a crucial platform for Ukrainian grain exports via an established maritime corridor by Kiev after Moscow left an agreement which allowed Ukraine to export its production.

This Friday, the day Russians began voting for a presidential election that Vladimir Putin is assured of winning, Moscow and kyiv also reported civilians killed in mutual artillery and drone attacks during the night.

In the Russian region of Belgorod, bordering Ukraine, a civilian and a fighter were killed and two civilians injured in Ukrainian bombings, announced the governor of this territory, Vyacheslav Gladkov.

Russian pro-kyiv fighters have launched incursions into several Russian regions in recent days. The Russian army assured on Friday that it had pushed them all back.

– Intense attacks in the east –

The occupation authorities installed by Moscow for their part affirmed in the morning that three children had died in nighttime Ukrainian bombings in Donetsk, a city in eastern Ukraine controlled by Russia.

Ukrainian police, for their part, announced that Russian drone attacks during the night had killed a couple and injured two teenagers in the Vinnytsia region (central-west), more than 400 kilometers from the front line.< /p>

In southern Ukraine, a 76-year-old woman died in a Russian bombing of the Zaporizhia region, the regional administration said.

Ukraine: positions of military forces © AFP – Valentin RAKOVSKY, Sophie RAMIS, Cléa PECULIER

The commander-in-chief of the Ukrainian armies Oleksandr Syrsky finally declared on Telegram on Friday that Russia had “concentrated its main efforts” around Avdiïvka, a town taken from the Ukrainians in February and has been “trying there for several days to break through the Ukrainian defense.

At the same time, the Ukrainian center responsible for prisoners of war announced that it had recovered the remains of 100 soldiers who fell at the front.

This type of exchange, along with that of captive soldiers, constitutes one of the last areas in which Moscow and Kiev have cooperated since the start of the invasion.

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