Ukraine: death toll from Russian strike against Odessa rises to 10

A woman and an eight-month-old infant were taken into custody. found on Sunday in the rubble of the affected building. on Friday night à Saturday by a Russian drone &agrav; Odessa, driving up the balance sheet à ten dead, indicated Sunday the Ukrainian authorities.

This attack on a nine-story building in this port city on the Black Sea resulted in “the deaths of ten people, including three children”, lamented Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky.

< p>“Marc: who was not even three years old yet; Elizaveta: eight months; and Timothy: four months”, he listed on Telegram. “Ukrainian children are Russia’s military targets,” he denounced.

Earlier Sunday, regional governor Oleg Kiper indicated that a woman had been found and her baby “next door”, bringing the death toll from the Russian attack to ten dead.

The mother and baby “were found together against each other,” Ukrainian emergency services said on Telegram.

Toys and teddy bears left on March 3, 2024, in tribute to the victims of the Russian strike that hit a building in Odessa, Ukraine © AFP – Oleksandr GIMANOV, Oleksandr GIMANOV

The authorities, however, did not report the number of injured, although emergency services had mentioned eight confirmed injuries on Saturday evening.

Volodymyr Zelensky said that “five people” had already been rescued, but that children “could” still be found under the rubble. “Search operations continue,” he added.

“Today, Odessa and the region mourn the victims of the Russian attack,” Mr. Kiper also indicated in a separate message on Telegram, evoking “great pain” for “all of Ukraine”.

On Saturday, Volodymyr Zelensky had castigated in his daily address the Russian “terror” which “aims exclusively to destroy lives, to intimidate”.

At the same time, he once again called on Kiev's Western allies to deliver more, and more quickly, ammunition – of which Kiev is sorely lacking -, air defense systems and combat planes to repel the Russian army.

“Delivery delays of weapons to Ukraine (…) lead, unfortunately, to such losses”, he said, referring to the deadly Russian strike on Odessa.

Elsewhere in Ukraine, “one person was killed and three others injured” on Sunday in the Kherson region following Russian attacks, the Ukrainian Interior Ministry said on Telegram.

Five other people were injured overnight from Saturday to Sunday in two Russian bombings in the Donetsk region (east), according to the Ukrainian regional prosecutor's office.

In the area of ​​Avdiïvka (east), a town conquered in mid-February by the Russian army, Ukrainian general Oleksandr Tarnavsky assured Sunday that the situation was “stabilizing”. “(It) remains complicated but under control.”

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