At least 21 people were killed Friday in strikes by strategic bombers in the middle of the night on buildings in the Odessa region of southern Ukraine, a new act of Russian “terror” according to President Volodymyr Zelensky.
According to the Ukrainian command of the southern front, it was Tupolev Tu-22 type aircraft, strategic bombers dating from the Cold War and designed to carry nuclear charges, which dropped Kh-22 missiles from the Black Sea against a building. housing and tourist buildings.
According to a latest report published on Telegram by the emergency services with photos of a largely destroyed building, the strike on the residential building left 16 dead and 38 injured, including 6 children, that against the tourist center leaves 5 dead, including a child, and one injured.
A previous toll reported 19 dead.
The nine-storey building where the strike caused the most victims is in the Bilgorod-Dniester region, about 80 km south of Odessa, according to the spokesman for the regional administration, Serguiï Bratchouk.
“A Russian Terror”
“This is a targeted and deliberate strike by Russia, let’s be frank, Russian terror against our towns and villages, against our people, adults and children,” denounced President Volodymyr Zelensky, receiving Norwegian Prime Minister Jonas Gahr in kyiv. Store.
“I call on our partners to provide Ukraine with missile defense systems as soon as possible. Help us save lives,” Foreign Minister Dmytro Kouleba wrote on Twitter, calling Russia a “terrorist state.”
Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov, questioned on the subject, assured that “the Russian armed forces do not operate on civilian targets” in Ukraine.
“The Russian side, which is once again talking about collateral damage, is inhumane and cynical,” German government spokesman Steffen Hebestreit commented in Berlin.
“This shows us once again in a cruel way that the Russian aggressor deliberately accepts the death of civilians”, he added, calling on the “Russian population (to) finally face this truth”.
The Kh-22 missiles used Friday in these strikes according to the Ukrainian military are Soviet anti-ship cruise missiles dating from the Cold War, designed to strike a carrier battle group.
According to the Ukrainian army, missiles of the same type struck a shopping center in the middle of the day on Monday in Kremenchuk, in central Ukraine 200 km from the front, killing at least 19 people there according to the latest reports. .
Also on Friday, the governor of the Mykolaiv region, Vitaliy Kim, reported the firing of 12 missiles by Russian forces against this area of southern Ukraine. He did not release a balance sheet.
These new deadly strikes come the day after the conclusion of a NATO summit in Madrid during which the members of the Alliance, led by the United States, assured Ukraine of their unwavering support in the face of Russia, and announced new military aid.
10 billion crowns
Norway in turn announced on Friday aid of 10 billion crowns (nearly one billion euros) to Ukraine, in particular for weapons.
Reacting to the strategic roadmap that the Atlantic Alliance had just adopted in Madrid, which now designates Russia as “the most significant and direct threat”, the Russian Minister of Foreign Affairs estimated Thursday in Minsk that it is a new “iron curtain” which is “coming down” between Russia and the West.
It was also on Thursday that the Ukrainians inflicted a snub on the Russian forces in the Black Sea, forcing them under the fire of their artillery to abandon Snake Island, a rocky Ukrainian islet southwest of Odessa and facing the mouth of the Danube, essential for controlling maritime traffic, particularly necessary for exporting the millions of tonnes of cereals lying dormant in Ukrainian silos.
“Serpents’ Island is a strategic point and this considerably changes the situation in the Black Sea”, estimated Mr. Zelensky.
On the other hand, he admitted that the situation remained “extremely difficult” in Lyssytchansk, a city in the industrial basin of Donbass, the eastern region where most of the fighting is concentrated.
“The (Russian) forces have arrived at the gates of Lysytchansk. The Ukrainian army is suffering heavy losses,” the Russian Defense Ministry said in a statement on Friday.
The Russians “are trying to encircle our army from the south and west” near the city, Sergei Gaïdaï, governor of the Lugansk region, confirmed on Telegram.
” Day and night “
“It bombs day and night”, testified, in Siversk, about twenty kilometers from Lyssytchank, a resident who refused to be named, at the foot of her building.
Lyssytchansk is the last major city not yet in Russian hands in the Lugansk region, one of the two provinces of Donbass, which Moscow intends to fully control.
In the Kharkiv region (northeast), Governor Oleg Sinegoubov on Friday reported four dead and three injured in the past 24 hours.
In Kherson, in the south, Ukrainian helicopters hit “a concentration of enemy troops and military equipment” near Bilozerka, the Ukrainian army said on Friday, reporting “35 dead” among Russian soldiers and enemy armor destroyed.
On the diplomatic front, European Commission President Ursula van der Leyen, addressing the Ukrainian parliament via video on Friday, called on it to speed up its reforms against corruption, as part of its accepted EU candidacy. last week by the leaders of the 27 Member States of the Union.
She also welcomed the adoption of a law aimed at undoing “the excessive influence of the oligarchs on the economy”, and called for the adoption of a “law on the media, which brings Ukrainian legislation into line with the standards of the European Union “.
“Now we are together” and it is “a great honor and a great responsibility”, declared President Zelensky before the parliament, stressing that “Ukraine is fighting to choose its values, to be in the European family”.
Finally, kyiv on Friday won a symbolic battle over Russia, with UNESCO recognizing that the Russian invasion was jeopardizing the Ukrainian culture of borscht, a beet and meat soup prepared on both sides of the border.
The United Nations cultural body has placed Ukrainian borscht on its list of Intangible World Heritage in Danger.
“The existence of this soup in itself is certainly not in danger in itself, but it is the human and living heritage associated with borscht which is in immediate danger” because of the war, according to the Unesco.
“Victory is ours in the borscht war,” Ukrainian Culture Minister Oleksandr Tkatchenko reacted on Telegram.
Moscow denounced a culinary illustration of “Kiev nationalism”.