Ukraine: At least 17 dead from Russian missile attacks in Odessa

LAST UPDATE: 10:18

At least 17 people were killed when Russian missiles hit buildings in the Odesa region of southern Ukraine, according to Kyiv.

A missile fired by a Russian “strategic bomber” hit a nine-story apartment building in the early hours of the morning, and the official toll so far is “14 dead and 30 injured, including three children,” Ukraine’s emergency services said.

Another missile, fired from the same aircraft, hit two other buildings a short distance from the first, killing “three people, including a child”, the services added.

Rescue operations are underway, which in the case of the multi-apartment building is complicated by a fire, according to Serhiy Brachuk, the representative of the Odesa regional authorities.

The first Russian missile hit “a nine-story apartment building in the Bilgorod-Dniester region,” about 80 kilometers south of Odessa, he said.

Mr. Brachuk also warned users of social networking sites not to reveal the movements of troops and first aid services.

“A rescue operation is underway, don’t write where, by whom, or when!”, so as not to put military personnel at risk, he told his country’s television station.

In Lisitsansk, Ukrainian units are in danger of being surrounded in a refinery

Meanwhile, Ukrainian troops in the eastern Ukrainian city of Lisitsansk say they are at risk of being surrounded by the Russian military at the refinery site.

In its report on the Russian army’s “attack” in the area of ​​the refinery, about 7 kilometers from the center of Lisitsansk, the Ukrainian general staff said it had been partially successful.

Russian troops “conducted an attack on sectors in the northeastern part of the Lisitsansk refinery, in the Topolivka commune and the northern part of the Vovtshoyarivka and Malorezantsevo communities,” he said.

Lisitsansk is the last city remaining in the hands of Ukrainian troops in Lugansk Oblast, in the Donbas Basin, as eastern Ukraine is known, which Moscow is trying to bring under its full control.

In the neighboring Donetsk region, Russian advance attempts near Sloviansk and Bakhmut were repulsed,” according to the Ukrainian staff, which noted, however, that along the front Ukrainian positions were being pounded by Russian artillery and air power.

Information from the war fronts in Ukraine is impossible to independently verify.

SOURCE: APE-ME