Kiev [Ukraine], April 7: At least three people were killed in the latest powerful Russian drone strikes on the southern Ukrainian port city of Odessa on Monday.
Fifteen residents, including a pregnant woman and two children, were injured, military governor Oleh Kiper reported on Telegram, after a drone struck a multi-storey residential building.
Those killed included a 30-year-old woman and her 2.5-year-old daughter, plus a 53-year-old woman. There were fires and significant destruction, Kiper said.
"Residential buildings, critical infrastructure and administrative buildings were hit," said Kiper. "Rescue operations are ongoing; there may still be people under the rubble."
Dog handlers and psychologists were also at the scene, he said. "Law enforcement agencies are documenting the aggressor state's latest war crimes against the civilian population." Kiper said 16,000 households are without power as a result of the attacks on energy infrastructure.
Ukrainian air defences reported 141 Russian drone attacks, 114 of which were repelled.
Several districts in Odessa were hit during the night, Serhiy Lysak, head of the city's military administration, said earlier on Telegram.
A high-rise building was struck in one district, causing severe damage between the fifth and third floors, Lysak said, adding that people could still be trapped under the rubble. Emergency services were at the scene.
The latest attack follows similar strikes the previous night, when residential buildings were damaged and three people were injured, according to Lysak.
Ukraine has been fighting a full-scale Russian invasion for more than four years.
Meanwhile in the Chernihiv region in northern Ukraine, some 340,000 people were without power following Russian attacks on energy infrastructure, the authorities said.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said energy facilities were also attacked in the Sumy, Kharkiv and Dnipropetrovsk regions.
The Russian Defence Ministry said it had attacked energy facilities, as well as factories producing missile components in Ukraine.
According to Zelensky, Russia has deployed more than 2,800 drones, nearly 1,350 glide bombs and more than 40 missiles and cruise missiles against Ukraine within a week.
In the Russian city of Novorossiysk, eight people were injured after Ukrainian drone attacks, said Veniamin Kondratyev, governor of the Krasnodar region. Two children were among the injured. Six residential buildings were damaged. Debris from downed drones was found on the premises of several businesses, he said.
The Transneft group's Sheskharis oil terminal was also hit, according to reports on social media. Russia also exports oil from there.
Ukraine struck the facility in March, the Defence Ministry in Kiev said.
Unusually, Russia's Defence Ministry confirmed damage to a pipeline and the loading point at the terminal. It also said four depots containing oil products caught fire. The ministry accused Ukraine of seeking to further destabilize the situation on the international energy market with the attacks.
Source: Qatar Tribune