After the withdrawal of Snake Island, a Russian missile attack kills 21 near Ukraine’s Odessa

SERIHEVKA, Ukraine (Reuters) – Russia flattened part of an apartment building as residents slept on Friday in rocket attacks near the Ukrainian port of Odessa that authorities said killed at least 21 people, hours after Russian forces abandoned the snake in the Black Sea. Island.

Local residents of the tourist village of Serhivka helped workers excavate the ruins of the nine-storey apartment building, part of which was completely destroyed in the early morning strike.

The walls and windows of a neighboring 14-storey apartment building were also damaged by the blast wave. The nearby holiday camps were also bombed.

said Oleksandr Abramov, who lives nearby and rushed to the scene when he heard the explosion.

Serhiy Prachuk, a spokesman for the Odessa regional administration, said 21 people had been confirmed killed, including a 12-year-old boy.

Among the dead was an employee of the children’s rehabilitation center set up by Moldova, neighboring Ukraine, at the resort. Five others were wounded.

“These peaceful people made the days of the children of Moldova even more beautiful, they took care of their rehabilitation with great love and devotion,” Moldovan Health Minister Alla Nmirenko said on her Facebook page.

The region’s governor said the missiles were launched from the direction of the Black Sea.

The Kremlin denied targeting civilians.

“I would like to remind you of the president’s words that the Russian armed forces do not work with civilian targets,” Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said.

The attack came just four days after Russia bombed a busy shopping center in central Ukraine, killing at least 19 people.

Kyiv says Moscow has escalated its long-range attacks, hitting civilian targets far from the frontline in what Ukraine calls war crimes. Russia says it is targeting military sites.

Thousands of civilians have been killed since Russia invaded Ukraine on February 24. Russia describes the invasion as a “special operation” to root out the nationalists. Ukraine and its Western allies say it is an unjustified war of aggression.

“push it back”

The strike on Serhivka occurred shortly after Russia withdrew its forces from Snek Island, a strategically prominent area 140 km southeast of Odessa that it captured on the first day of the war. They used it to control the northwest Black Sea.

President Volodymyr Zelensky, in his video night address, hailed what he described as a strategic victory on Snake Island.

“It does not guarantee security yet. It does not guarantee that the enemy will not return,” he added. “But this greatly limits the actions of the occupiers. Step by step, we will banish them from our sea, land and sky.”

Russia has used its control of the sea to impose a blockade on Ukraine, one of the world’s largest grain exporters, threatening to crash the Ukrainian economy and cause a global famine.

Moscow denies responsibility for the food crisis, which it says is caused by Western sanctions that are hurting its exports.

Russian President Vladimir Putin met the Indonesian president on Thursday and spoke by phone on Friday with the prime minister of India, promising both major food importers that Russia will remain a major supplier of grain.

Ukraine said the Russian-flagged cargo ship, Zhebek Zuli, left the Russian-occupied port of Berdyansk with a shipment of Ukrainian grain. Kyiv has demanded that Turkey seize the ship, according to a Ukrainian official and a document seen by Reuters. Read more

On Thursday, a Russian official said that after a pause of several months, the first cargo ship left the port of Berdyansk, but did not name Zybek Zuli.

Ukraine accused Russia of stealing grain from lands captured by Russian forces since their invasion.

The Kremlin has previously denied this and did not respond to requests for comment on Friday.

No gas, electricity, water

Russia’s intense campaign of long-range missile attacks on Ukrainian cities came as its forces achieved battlefield success in the east, with a relentless offensive to force Kyiv to cede two provinces to the separatists.

Moscow has been on the verge of capturing one of those provinces, Luhansk, since capturing the city of Severodonetsk last week after some of the fiercest battles of the war.

Ukraine’s last stronghold in Luhansk is the city of Lysychansk across the Siverskyi Donets, which is close to being encircled under Russian artillery.

The region’s governor, Serhiy Gaidai, told Ukrainian television that the Russians were shelling Lyschansk from different directions and approaching from several directions.

“The superiority in the firepower of the occupiers is still very much apparent,” Zelensky said. “They simply brought all their reserves to strike us.”

In Russian-occupied Severodonetsk, residents emerged from cellars to dig among the ruins of their city.

“Almost all the city’s infrastructure is destroyed. We have been without gas, electricity and water since May,” Sergei Oleinik, 65, told Reuters. “We’re glad that’s over, maybe reconstruction will start soon, and we’ll be back to normal life in one form or another.”

Reporting by Reuters offices. Written by Peter Graf and Angus McSwan; Editing by Nick McPhee and Rosalba O’Brien

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