The Kremlin offensive continues in southern Ukraine. Russia targeted the port cities of Mykolaiv and Odessa early Thursday (July 20), injuring at least 20 people, local authorities reported. “The Russians hit the center of the city [of Mykolaiv]. A garage and a three-story apartment building are on fire. Firefighters went to the scene,” Vitaliy Kim, governor of the Mykolaiv region, said on Telegram. “A total of 18 people were injured, nine of them were hospitalized, including five children, two people were rescued from the rubble,” he added.
Vitaliy Kim did not provide other information, in particular as to the type of weapon used in this strike. According to the mayor of Mykolaiv, Oleksandr Sienkevich, “there is a huge hole in the ground near a three-storey residential building. The fire is very serious.” “At least five residential buildings were damaged […] A search and rescue operation is underway,” the mayor also said, adding that “about 15 garages were damaged” at another address.
An air alert had been triggered earlier in several Ukrainian regions, including that of Mykolaiv, regularly targeted by Russian forces since the start of Moscow’s invasion of Ukraine on February 24, 2022.
In Odessa, a major Ukrainian port city on the Black Sea some 100 km southwest of Mykolaiv, another Russian attack led to two people being hospitalized, according to the local governor. “As a result of the Russian attack…there was destruction in the center of Odessa,” Oleg Kiper, governor of the Odessa region, said on Telegram, without specifying the nature of the attack. The competent services are hard at work, he added.
Earlier in the night, the Kiev air force had indicated on Telegram that it had detected the launch of missiles in the direction of the Odessa region, where an air alert was triggered. Oleg Kiper had urged people to stay in the shelters. This is the third consecutive night of Russian attacks on Odessa. During the night of Tuesday to Wednesday, an attack had targeted “the grain terminals and port infrastructure” of the ports of Odessa and Chornomorsk, and “the silos and docks of the port of Odessa” had been damaged in particular.
The Russian army, for its part, claimed to have targeted only “military industrial sites, fuel infrastructure and ammunition depots of the Ukrainian army”. On Wednesday, Moscow announced that it would consider any vessel heading for Ukraine’s Black Sea grain ports a military target. kyiv for its part called for international escorts for these cargo ships after the expiration of a crucial agreement for world food.
