Odesa, Ukraine
Reuters
Russia launched a major air attack on the Ukrainian Black Sea port of Odesa late on Sunday, wounding at least eight people, setting ablaze trucks loaded with grain and damaging one of the city’s principal art galleries, officials said.
About 20 multi-storey buildings and more than two dozen cars were damaged in the attack, the Interior Ministry said. Air defences shot down 15 out of 22 incoming Iranian-made “Shahed” drones and an X-59 missile, the air force said.
A view shows the site of a Russian missile strike, amid Russia’s attack on Ukraine, in Odesa, Ukraine on 6th November, 2023. PICTURE: Reuters/Nina Liashonok
Odesa Governor Oleh Kiper said 15 drones targeted the city’s port infrastructure. Warehouses and specialised vehicles were also damaged, and trucks carrying grain caught fire, though they were quickly put out, he said.
Russia has intensified its bombardments of Ukrainian ports, including Odesa, and grain infrastructure since July when Moscow pulled out of the Black Sea Grain Initiative, a wartime deal that enabled Ukraine’s exports to reach many countries facing the threat of hunger.
The air force said in a statement that Russia launched four different missiles targeting the southern Odesa and Kherson regions. The drones and missiles were launched from the Crimean peninsula, annexed by Russia in 2014.
It was not clear whether the buildings and the trucks were hit by drones or falling debris.
There was no immediate comment from Russia.
Andriy Yermak, head of the President’s office, suggested the attack was a response to Ukrainian strikes on Crimea.
“This is their despicable answer to the reality – the Ukrainian Crimea will be demilitarised, without the Black Sea fleet and military bases of the Russians,” he said.
The strike also caused significant damage to the Odesa Fine Arts Museum, located in one of the oldest, tsarist-era palaces at the heart of the city.
Municipal workers clean an area at the site of a Russian missile strike, amid Russia’s attack on Ukraine, in Odesa, Ukraine, on 6th November, 2023. PICTURE: Reuters/Nina Liashonok
“On November 6, the Odesa National Art Museum turns 124-years-old,” said Kiper. “On the eve of Nov 6, the Russians ‘congratulated’ our architectural monument with a missile that hit nearby.”
The Odesa city council published a video showing smashed windows and debris inside what it said was the art museum.
On the street near the museum, the attack left a hole several metres deep.
The museum hosted some 10,000 pieces of art before the war, including paintings by some of the best-known Russian and Ukrainian artists of the late 19th and early 20th centuries.
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Meanwhile, a Ukrainian military brigade said on Monday that 19 of its soldiers were killed last week in a Russian air strike that President Volodymyr Zelenskiy described as “a tragedy that could have been avoided”.
Ukrainian media reported that the soldiers were killed during an awards ceremony on Friday in the frontline Zaporizhzhia region of south-eastern Ukraine.
A statement issued by the 128th Separate Mountain Assault Brigade on Monday provided the death toll but gave few other details.
Ukraine’s defence minister said on Saturday an investigation had been launched into the attack, and Ukraine’s military said separately that Russia had struck the Zaporizhzhia region with an Iskander ballistic missile.
Reuters has not been able to verify details of the attack independently. Russia’s Defence Ministry said its forces had fired on Ukrainian troops in the region, and that it had killed up to 30 military personnel.
Ukraine’s State Bureau of Investigations said on Monday it was investigating a decision by the military command to organise an event for Rocket and Artillery Day in a village close to the front line in Zaporizhzhia, but did not say what the event was.
“The main thing is to establish the complete truth about what happened and prevent such incidents happening again,” Zelenskiy said on Sunday.
“Now the investigation must provide honest answers to the families of the fallen soldiers and society about how this tragedy occurred and whether any improper orders were issued.”
Kyiv launched a counter-offensive in south-eastern Ukraine in early June but progress has been slow against entrenched Russian forces who invaded Ukraine in February, 2022.
– With reporting by OLENA HARMASH and YULIIA DYSA
