A Ukrainian town near the historic port city of Odessa — one of the last Black Sea ports under Ukrainian control — was rocked by Russian missile strikes that left at least 21 dead on Friday.
The missiles fell before dawn Friday on Serhiivka, 30 miles down the coast from Odessa.
Russian warplanes fired three missiles at the town, striking an apartment building and a campside, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky’s office said.
“These missiles, Kh-22, were designed to destroy aircraft carriers and other large warships, and the Russian army used them against an ordinary nine-story building with ordinary civilian people,” Zelensky said.
Serhii Bratchuk, a spokesman for the Odessa oblast, said children were among the 21 killed, but did not provide an exact number.
Thirty-eight others were hospitalized with wounds from the attack, including six children and a pregnant woman.
The strike comes a day after Ukrainian troops pushed Russian forces off of Snake Island — a small Black Sea outpost that allows control over shipping lanes into and out of Odessa.
Ukrainian officials have long suspected Russia to have designs on the historic port. Snake Island was initially taken by Kremlin forces in the opening hours of the war, and speculation was rampant in early weeks that Russia was preparing an amphibious landing to take the city.
Odessa is currently the only major Black Sea port under Kyiv’s control, and some Ukrainian officials Friday described the bombardment of Serhiivka as payback for Ukraine’s bombardment of Russian military positions on Snake Island.
Meanwhile, in the eastern Donbas region, Russian forces continued to bombard Lysychansk, the last remaining Ukrainian foothold in the state of Luhansk.
“The shelling of the city is very intensive,” Luhansk Governor Serhiy Haidai told the Associated Press. “The occupiers are destroying one house after another with heavy artillery and other weapons. Residents of Lysychansk are hiding in basements almost round the clock.”
As the strikes continued, Russian forces were trying to surround the city, Haidai said. There were reports of fighting Friday at an oil refinery at the edge of Lysychansk, with both sides claiming to have control of the plant.
With Post wires