Russian missile attack on Odessa apartment block kills at least 10 Ukrainians

At least 18 people, including two children, were killed and dozens injured in a Russian rocket attack on a civilian building in Ukraine.

Kyiv says the AS-4 anti-ship missile, the same type used against the Kremenchuk mall earlier this week, hit a nine-story building in Odessa overnight but completely destroyed the building.

According to local authorities, 31 people were injured in the attack, including a pregnant woman and four babies. The video shows rescuers searching for survivors in the rubble and a downtrodden woman asking for help as a baby cries in the background.

It is the latest Russian air strike to hit a civilian target in Ukraine since the Kremenchuk mall was hit on Monday, killing at least 20 people, and a residential building in Mykolaiv on Wednesday, killing at least eight people.

Ukraine says Russia is deliberately targeting civilians as part of a “terrorist” campaign to divert attention from the failed invasion, which Putin denies.

The attack on Odessa, allegedly carried out by a Russian Tu-22 bomber, came hours after Putin’s forces withdrew from Cobra Island, 90 kilometers from the main port city.

Russian forces were forced to abandon 100 hectares of land after Ukrainian artillery fire and anti-ship missile batteries.

Moscow tried to withdraw as a “gesture of goodwill”, using the same phrases when it was forced to withdraw from Kiev and Chernigov at the start of the war.

Snake Island is of little practical but strategic importance as it helps the occupier to control the waters off Odessa, which remains the main target of the Russian invasion.

Russia has repeatedly tried to deploy anti-aircraft and anti-missile batteries on the island, but has repeatedly seen them destroyed.

Ukraine also successfully attacked helicopters and ships trying to reinforce and supply parts located on the island.

The loss of territory further raises the possibility of an amphibious attack on Odessa, which they had feared since the early days of the war.

It is also highly embarrassing for Putin’s already embarrassed Black Sea Fleet, which has seen many of its ships, including the flagship Moscow, sunk for a country that does not have a functioning navy.

The decision to leave Snake Island “changes the situation in the Black Sea quite a bit,” Zelensky said in his daily speech on Thursday.

“It still doesn’t guarantee safety. This still doesn’t guarantee the enemy won’t come back. But this already significantly limits the actions of the occupants.”

On Wednesday, another Russian rocket hit a five-story building in the town of Mykolaiv, located 110 kilometers off the coast of Odessa.

Ukraine said on Friday the death toll in the attack had risen to eight after the body of a man was found in a collapsed staircase.

And earlier this week, a Russian rocket hit the Amstor shopping mall in the Ukrainian city of Kremenchuk, killing at least 20 people.

Another 21 people are missing after being hit by a rocket at 4pm local time on Monday.

Russia says it carried out two attacks on military installations in the city, a nearby weapons factory and a train station used to transport weapons, and a disused shopping mall was accidentally set on fire after a fire.

But Ukraine released a series of CCTV clips casting doubt on those claims, including footage showing an anti-ship missile directly hitting a shopping mall.

Another video posted yesterday shows people shopping and working inside a mall at the time of the attack.

A third selection of tapes even shows a second rocket hitting the north end of the plant and dumping debris onto civilians in a nearby park.

President Putin has denied that his army is deliberately attacking civilians, which would be a war crime.

“Our military does not attack any civilian infrastructure installations. “We have every opportunity to find out where he is and where he is,” Putin told a news conference in Ashgabat, the capital of Turkmenistan.

“No one among us throws so accidentally. This is usually done based on target intelligence and “high-precision weapons”.

“I am convinced that this time everything was done just like that,” Putin said.

The Russian autocrat attended the 6th Caspian Summit of the leaders of Azerbaijan, Iran, Kazakhstan and Turkmenistan to discuss “current issues of cooperation in the Caspian Sea”.

It was feared that there would be around 1000 people in it.

It came after Russian troops left Snake Island yesterday, dealing another blow to Putin’s invasion, just days after Ukraine’s military launched a devastating rocket attack on an outpost.

Cobras Island became a symbol of Ukrainian resistance in the early days of the war, when defenders of a rocky outcrop told a Russian warship to ask them to surrender and “get out of here”, an incident that spawned a meme. .

It was also a strategic target sitting on the sidelines near the Ukrainian port of Odessa. Russia was trying to deploy air defense missiles and batteries while under drone fire.

Now, however, Ukraine has started receiving long-range missiles and military equipment from its Western backers, and Russia’s position on Cobra Island appears to have become unbearable, officials say.

A Russian Defense Ministry statement described the withdrawal as a “goodwill gesture” intended to show Moscow would not interfere with UN efforts to organize the export of protected grain from Ukraine, but Kyiv said it was a victory.

“I thank the defenders of the Odessa region for taking maximum measures to free a strategically important part of our territory,” Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces of Ukraine Valery Zaluzhny told Telegram.