Kyiv: At least five people were killed after a Russian missile struck an educational institution in a popular seafront park in the Ukrainian Black Sea port of Odesa on Monday, while 32 others were injured in the attack. The institution is locally known as “Harry Potter castle” due to its resemblance to a Scottish baronial pile, according to CNN.
Regional governor Oleh Kiper, writing on the Telegram messaging app, said that in addition to those killed in the attack, one man died after suffering a stroke attributed to the strike. Kiper further said eight of the injured were in serious condition, including a 4-year-old child and a pregnant woman. Visuals emerged of the ornate building, a private law academy, in flames and all but destroyed.
Watch the video of the Russian attack
"Monsters. Beasts. Savages. Scum. I don't know what else to say. People are going for a walk by the sea and they are shooting and killing," said Odesa Mayor Hennadii Trukhanov on Telegram. Video footage, which could not be immediately verified, showed people receiving treatment on the street alongside pools of blood. One photo showed officials examining part of a missile.
Ukrainian navy spokesperson Dmytro Pletenchuk said the strike was conducted by an Iskander-M ballistic missile with a cluster warhead. A Ukrainian public broadcaster said the academy's president, a prominent former member of parliament, Serhiy Kivalov, was among the injured. "In front of my eyes, a missile was shot down, this was just in front of me. My doors were blown open and the glass was shaking. And then I saw this," Maria, a student at the academy, told Reuters.
Odesa has been a frequent target of Russian missile and drone attacks, particularly port infrastructure. Ukraine’s Prosecutor General Andriy Kostin that an investigation into the recent attack has "grounds to believe" that the Russian military used cluster munitions with the intention to inflict a large number of casualties.
Ukraine launches drones on Russian regions
Meanwhile, Ukraine launched drones on several Russian regions in the hours leading to Wednesday morning, Russian officials said, with unofficial Russian news outlets reporting a fire at the Ryazan oil refinery after the attack. Pavel Malkov, governor of the Ryazan region sharing a border with Moscow, said that there were no injuries in the drone attacks there.
The refinery, owned and run by Rosneft ROSN.MM, refines about 5.8 per cent of Russia's total refined crude. It has been a frequent target for Ukraine's air attacks. The governors of the Kursk and Voronezh regions in southwest Russia that border Ukraine also reported drone attacks on their territories, saying there was no damage or injuries.
President Volodymyr Zelenskyy on Tuesday said Ukraine needed "a significant acceleration" in deliveries of weaponry from its partners to enable its troops to face advancing Russian troops in several sectors of the front line. He pointed specifically to deliveries of US weapons, after a six-month slowdown in supplies, as critical in righting the situation at key points in the 1,000-km (600-mile) front line.
"We need a significant acceleration of supplies to enhance tangibly the capabilities of our soldiers... We are very much counting on prompt deliveries from the United States. These supplies must make themselves felt in disrupting the logistics of the occupiers, in making them afraid to base themselves anywhere on occupied territory and in our strength," he said in a nightly video address.
Russia has said its forces have captured several villages in the east after its capture in February of the town of Avdiivka. Top Ukrainian commander Oleksander Syrskyi has said Russian forces had set a goal of capturing the key town of Chasiv Yar -- northeast of Avdiivka -- to coincide with Russia's May 9 commemoration of the Soviet victory in World War Two.
(with inputs from Reuters)
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