A Russian ballistic missile attack hit a residential area in Ukraine's Black Sea port city of Odesa today, killing at least 20 people including rescue workers and wounding more than 70 in Moscow's deadliest attack in weeks, Ukrainian officials have said.
President Volodymyr Zelensky said Russia would receive a "fair response" from Ukrainian forces for what he said was a "vile" strike on a city that has been attacked by Russian drones or missiles almost everyday this month.
Two Iskander-M missiles fired from the Russian-occupied Crimea peninsula damaged civilian infrastructure and gas and electricity supply lines in the southern city, regional governor Oleh Kiper said on national television.
"The explosion was very strong, especially the second one. This is a very powerful missile that flies from the occupied Crimea in a few minutes," Mr Kiper said.
A medic and rescuer were killed by a second missile after rushing to the scene to treat people hurt in the initial strike. Ten people had suffered serious injuries, he added.
Local officials and national police said police were among the dead, including at least two senior officers. A former deputy mayor of the city was also killed.
Some residents were facing gas and electricity supply cuts as a result of strikes, Mr Kiper said.
"Our defence forces will certainly do everything to ensure that the Russian killers feel our fair response," Mr Zelensky said on Telegram.
Residents were rushing to donate blood, creating queues at medical centres. Tomorrow has been declared a local day of mourning.
A three-storey recreational facility was destroyed in the attack as well as at least 10 private houses, the southern military command said.
Bodies were laid out in foil protective blankets, while dozens of rescuers battled to put out fires and continued clearing the rubble.
Odesa, one of Ukraine's biggest ports, has long been a target of Russian attacks, especially after Moscow quit a UN-brokered deal that had allowed safe passage for Ukrainian grain shipments via the Black Sea.
"The Russian terror in Odesa is a sign of the weakness of the enemy, which is fighting against Ukrainian civilians at a time when it cannot guarantee the safety of people on its own territory," Ukrainian presidential chief of staff Andriy Yermak wrote on Telegram.
Maria Slyzovska, who witnessed the attack, said the first strike rocked her mother's home leaving "everything broken" before the second missile hit.
"There were a lot of people there. There was blood and ambulances. We all live in the realities of this Russian roulette," she told AFP.
Mr Zelensky said Russian forces had launched a type of attack known as a double-tap strike on the port hub, with the second projectile ploughing into rescue workers at the scene.
Attack on Vinnytsia
Two people also died in a Russian drone strike in the central region of Vinnytsia, officials said, and a shelling attack on the frontline Zaporizhzhia region killed one woman.
Ukraine's national police said in a statement that "Russian troops attacked the Vinnytsia region with drones, there are dead and wounded".
"As a result of the enemy attack, a 52-year-old man was killed and his 53-year-old wife died in hospital," it added.
The Vinnytsia region is more than 400km from the frontlines.
In the southern Zaporizhzhia region, which Moscow claims to have annexed and partially controls, a 76-year-old woman was killed when fragments of a Russian shell hit her while she was in her garden, Ukrainian Governor Ivan Fedorov said.
Moscow-installed officials said that three children died in overnight shelling by Ukraine's army on the Russian-held city of Donetsk while shelling of the border Belgorod region left a member of its territorial defence unit dead.
"As a result of barbaric overnight shelling...a direct hit was recorded on a house in a residential area," Russian-appointed mayor of Donetsk Alexey Kulemzin said.
"Three children died. A girl born in 2007, a girl born in 2021, and a boy born in 2014," he added.
Russian forces last month captured the city of Avdiivka, just a few kilometres to the north of Donetsk.
It said pushing Ukrainian forces back would help protect residents of areas under its control from shelling.
The head of Ukraine's army said that Russia had launched a wave of attacks to try to advance further in the area.
"The enemy has concentrated its main efforts and has been trying to break through ... for several days in a row," Ukrainian commander-in-chief Oleksandr Syrsky said in a statement after visiting troops on the frontlines around Avdiivka.
Ukraine's air force said earlier that Russia fired 27 Iranian-style drones and eight missiles at its territory overnight. It claimed to have shot them all down.
Russia also said that Ukraine launched drone and artillery attacks on areas closer to the countries' shared border.
Governor of Russia's Belgorod region, Vyacheslav Gladkov, said: "The town of Grayvoron came under Ukrainian army shelling."
"There is a dead man. He is a member of our territorial self-defence unit."
Russia's defence ministry said it had downed drones and rockets over Belgorod and the Kaluga region, southwest of the capital Moscow.
The governor of Russia's Lipetsk region also said that two drones were downed in a district around 300km from Ukraine.
