Russia’s Missile Attack on Odesa Kills At Least One, Damages Cathedral
MOSCOW (Dispatches) – A Russian missile attack on the Ukrainian port city of Odesa has killed at least one person, wounded 19 and badly damaged an Orthodox cathedral, according to officials.
Oleg Kiper, the governor of Odesa, said on the Telegram messaging app that those wounded in Sunday’s air attack included several children.
“Odesa, another night attack of the monsters,” he said.
“Fourteen people were hospitalized in the city’s hospitals, three of them were children,” he said.
The attack also destroyed six houses and apartment buildings, he added.
Russia has been pounding Odesa and other Ukrainian food export facilities nearly daily over the past week after it withdrew from a United Nations-brokered sea corridor agreement that allowed for the safe shipment of Ukrainian grain.
Ukraine’s air force said on Telegram on Sunday that Russia launched high-precision Onyx missiles and sea-to-shore Kalibr cruise missiles on Odesa.
The city’s military administration said air defense systems destroyed a “significant part” of the missiles, which they said included Iskander ballistic missiles.
A day earlier, Russia blamed the U.S. after an attack conducted by the Ukrainian military forces using Washington-supplied cluster munitions killed Russian military correspondent Rostislav Zhuravlev and injured several other journalists.
“Rostislav died as a result of Ukrainian armed forces strike with cluster munitions,” the Russian Embassy in Washington said in a statement on Saturday.
The statement said civilians in residential areas had been targeted by Ukrainian forces, blaming the U.S. for providing Kiev with the widely-banned cluster munitions.
“Ukrainian radicals use these shells to hit cities and villages of our country, destroying homes of civilians. Kiev receives such weapons from the United States,” it added.
“American officials assured the world community that the Ukrainians would use these munitions ‘selectively and carefully.’ The nullity of these words is evident to everyone,” the statement said.
It further said the use of the cluster bombs against civilians demonstrated that Washington is “losing control over its puppets.”
Cluster shells, bombs, and munitions contain dozens of small bomblets that rain shrapnel over a wide area and are banned in most countries due to the potential danger they pose to civilians.
Putin Hosts Lukashenko
Russian President Vladimir Putin said Ukraine’s counteroffensive “has failed” as he hosted Belarusian leader Alexander Lukashenko, his close ally, for talks in St Petersburg on Sunday.
“There is no counteroffensive,” Russian news agencies quoted Lukashenko as saying.
Putin replied: “It exists, but it has failed.”
Ukraine began its long-anticipated counter-offensive last month but has so far made only small gains against well entrenched Russian forces who control more than a sixth of its territory after nearly 17 months of war.
U.S. General Mark Milley, chair of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said on Tuesday the Ukrainian drive was “far from a failure” but would be long, hard and bloody.