At least 21 people were killed this Friday in a Russian missile attack on the town of Serhiivka, in the Bilhorod-Dnistrovsky district, in the Ukrainian province of Odessa.
“Odessa region.
As of 0830 local time [one hour less in mainland Spain], 18 people have died, including two children.
30 have been injured”, the deputy head of the Presidential Office, Kirilo Timoshenko, wrote in a message on Telegram.
Official sources cited by Reuters put the death toll at 21. The Ukrainian Emergency Service has confirmed the rocket attack, which it attributed to the Russian army, and which began at one in the morning.
The brutal bombing of Odessa took place just a few hours after the closure of the NATO summit in Madrid, in which the allies promised to assist Ukraine with more weapons.
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“As a result of a missile attack by the [Russian] strategic aviation Tu-22 from the Black Sea in the Bilhorod-Dnistrovskyi district of the Odessa region, three X-22 missiles hit an apartment building overnight. with several floors and two recreational centers”, Timoshenko pointed out in his latest report.
The emergency service has reported that one of the missiles hit a nine-storey residential building that had been partially destroyed.
The Odessa region, whose capital of the same name has the only seaport in Ukraine that the Russians do not yet control, borders Moldova and Romania.
General view of the destroyed building after being hit by a missile in the Ukrainian city of Serhiivka. OLEKSANDR GIMANOV (AFP)
A 14-storey apartment block was also damaged by the blast wave.
Neighbors have helped emergency services comb through the debris.
“We came here to the site, we assessed the situation together with emergency workers and locals, and together we helped those who survived.
And those who unfortunately died, we collaborated to take them away, ”Oleksandr Abramov, who lives nearby and rushed to the scene when he heard the explosion, told Reuters.
The Kremlin has denied attacking civilians: "I would like to recall the president's words that the Russian Armed Forces do not work with civilian targets," Kremlin spokesman Dmitri Peskov told reporters on Friday.
Russia announced on Thursday the withdrawal of its military from Snake Island, essential for the control of maritime traffic to the Black Sea from Odessa.
Siege of Lisichansk
Russia has reported this Friday that Russian and pro-Russian forces have reached the gates of the city of Lisichansk, the last bastion under Ukraine's control in the eastern Lugansk region, after having taken control of a refinery and other industrial areas in the south and southeast.
"The allied [Russian and pro-Russian] forces are directly at the gates of Lisichansk," Defense Ministry spokesman Lieutenant General Igor Konashenkov said in the morning war part of it.
According to the representative in Russia of the self-proclaimed people's republic of Lugank, Rodión Miroshnik, the Russian forces have redoubled their offensive on the city of Lisichank, the last Ukrainian stronghold in the eastern region of Lugansk, where they attack from four directions.
He added that from the south, in the area of the RTI rubber factory, his troops "not only entered the city, but also carried out 'clean-up operations' in the surrounding blocks."
For its part, the General Staff of the Ukrainian Armed Forces, on its Facebook page, has confirmed that the Russians are attacking with artillery the few positions that the Ukrainians hold in Lisichansk.
Russian troops try to encircle Ukrainian troops on the outskirts of this city from the south and west, with a siege that has lasted for days.
In Mariupol another mass grave has been found with more than a hundred bodies, according to the mayor's advisor, Petró Andriushchenko, who added that the exhumations in this port city have been definitively paralyzed.
“Sad finds every week.
A new mass grave under the rubble on the left bank.
Once again, more than a hundred bodies of people since the end of February,” Andriushchenko wrote on Telegram.
A woman, with a child in her arms, takes a photo of a destroyed building in the Ukrainian city of Serhiivka, near Odessa. OLEKSANDR GIMANOV (AFP)
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