Six people died and 19 were injured on Wednesday in Russian missile strikes in Ukraine, including in Odessa on the Black Sea coast, as Kiev claims slight advances in its counter-offensive in the east.
In Odessa, three people were killed and 13 were injured in a Kalibr cruise missile strike which notably hit a commercial warehouse, said on Telegram Serguiï Bratchouk, spokesman for the military administration of this large southern city. from the country.
Seven other employees were injured and “there could be people under the rubble,” Odessa Mayor Gennadiy Troukhanov said in a statement. The attack destroyed 1,000 m2 of warehouses and caused a fire on 400 m2, according to Mr. Bratchouk.
In addition to warehouse workers, six people were injured in other places in Odessa, where a business center, educational institution, residential complex, restaurants and shops were damaged.
Odessa, once a popular holiday destination for many Ukrainians and Russians and whose historic center was inscribed on UNESCO’s list of World Heritage in Danger in January, has been bombed several times since the beginning of the Russian invasion.
According to the Ukrainian Air Force, three of the four Kalibr missiles fired by Russia could be intercepted. Russian forces also launched ten Iranian-made drones overnight.
Fired from the Russian region of Rostov-on-the-Don, six X-22 type cruise missiles, on the other hand, hit the Donetsk region in eastern Ukraine.
Three people were killed there and six others injured, according to Governor Pavlo Kyrylenko.
In Kramatorsk, a large city in this region, AFP journalists noted a huge crater caused by an explosion on a road in the middle of houses with blown windows.
One resident, 33-year-old police officer Anastassia Korzoune, said she and her husband escaped from their damaged home to join others trying to pull neighbors out of the rubble.
At least two people were killed on the spot and several others injured, according to locals.
The Russian army, for its part, assured that it had carried out strikes during the night on places of concentration of soldiers, ammunition and armament depots. “All targets have been hit. The aim of the strikes has been achieved,” she said.
The day before, six people including four forest guards were killed in a Russian bombardment near the border in northeastern Ukraine, the Ukrainian prosecutor’s office said on Telegram on Wednesday, posting a photo of a van riddled with shrapnel. of shrapnel.
Also on Tuesday, the hometown of President Volodymyr Zelensky, Kryvyi Rig, was targeted by a Russian strike that left at least 12 dead, according to a new report from the authorities. This attack notably affected a four-storey apartment building and a warehouse.
These Russian strikes come at a time when the Ukrainian army, backed by Western arms supplies, is on the offensive on several parts of the front in the South and East.
If Ukraine claims to be “moving forward” with the recapture of seven villages, Russian President Vladimir Putin on the contrary assured Tuesday that the forces of Kiev were held in check and suffered losses close to a “catastrophic” level.
According to military analysts, Ukraine has not yet launched the bulk of its forces in its counter-offensive, testing the front line in search of weak points. Currently, these operations seem to be concentrated on three main axes: Bakhmout, the area of ??Vougledar (south-east) and that of Orikhiv (south).
Over the past three days, the Ukrainians have recaptured about three square kilometers of territory and advanced in some areas up to 1.4 kilometers deep, Ukrainian General Staff Andrii Kovaliov said Wednesday.
The director of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), Rafael Grossi, is expected at the Zaporijjia nuclear power plant, occupied by Russia, to determine in particular whether this gigantic installation has been endangered by the destruction of the Kakhovka dam on the Dnieper River, the water from which is used to cool the six reactors.
Initially scheduled for Wednesday, this was postponed to Thursday, according to a Russian nuclear sector official. Neither kyiv nor the AEIA have confirmed this information so far.
According to a Western diplomatic source contacted by AFP, his trip was postponed “for a few hours but not canceled”.
According to Mr. Grossi, there is no “immediate danger” for the plant, but the water level in the cooling basin worries him: “There is a serious risk, because the water which is there -bas is limited”.
“I want to make my own assessment,” he told reporters in Kyiv on Tuesday.
14/06/2023 19:30:58 – Kiev (Ukraine) (AFP) © 2023 AFP