Ukraine: Russian missile hits apartment building in Odesa region – At least 14 dead

LAST UPDATE: 09:19

At least 14 people were killed when a missile fired from a Russian “strategic bomber” hit a nine-story apartment building in the early hours of the morning on the outskirts of Odessa, the major port of southern Ukraine, authorities said.

So far, “we have 14 dead and 30 injured, including three children,” Ukraine’s emergency services said, clarifying that the search and rescue operation, hampered by the fire, is still ongoing.

A previous report spoke of ten dead.

The Russian missile hit “a nine-story apartment building in the Bilgorod-Dniester region,” about 80 kilometers south of Odessa, according to Serhii Brachuk, the spokesman for the Odessa regional authorities.

At the same time, the spokesman 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