Ukraine promised Sunday “reprisals” after the Russian strikes on Odessa, which killed two people and destroyed a historic cathedral, while Vladimir Putin affirmed that the Ukrainian counter-offensive launched in early June had “failed”.
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“There is no counter-offensive,” said Belarusian leader Alexander Lukashenko, Russia’s leading ally in the conflict in Ukraine, whom his Russian counterpart receives for two days in Saint Petersburg, in northwestern Russia.
Mr Putin then interrupted him and said: ‘There is one, but it failed’.
Regularly targeted by Russian strikes, Odessa, on the Black Sea, whose historic center was listed earlier this year by UNESCO as a World Heritage Site, was the target of a new night attack which left two dead and 22 wounded, including at least four children, according to the Ukrainian authorities.
Reuters
Inside the largely destroyed Transfiguration Cathedral, debris lies on the ground, while locals have come to help in an attempt to clean up the area.
Collapsed walls, burnt icons, rattling chandeliers: the scenery on Sunday in this splendid building over 200 years old was nothing but destruction.
“All the sets are practically destroyed. Only the bell tower is intact,” Father Myroslav, deputy rector of the cathedral, told AFP. “The shock wave was so strong that the cathedral, which is 95 meters long, saw all its windows and doors damaged.”
Reuters
“Missiles against peaceful towns, against apartment buildings, a cathedral”, President Volodymyr Zelensky got carried away. “There will definitely be retaliation,” he promised.
The Ukrainian Foreign Ministry denounced “a war crime that will never be forgotten or forgiven”, while Oleksiï Kouleba, the deputy chief of staff of the Ukrainian presidency, condemned “a new attempt” to “erase our history and our heritage”.
Oleksiï, a resident of Odessa, said he had “the windows of his room shattered” by one of the shots. “The kitchen has a hole in the roof,” he told AFP.
The strikes came shortly after Moscow announced it had carried out military maneuvers in the Black Sea, where tensions have risen since the expiration of a crucial global food deal that allowed Ukrainian grain exports.
The Ukrainian Air Force claimed that “19 missiles of various types” (Onyx, Kalibr and Iskander) were fired overnight from Saturday to Sunday by Russia, nine of which were shot down.
Reuters
Odessa, in southern Ukraine, is a strategic port for maritime transit in the region and has suffered numerous night attacks over the past week.
UNESCO had “strongly condemned” Friday the Russian strikes against “several museums” and historic buildings.
Twenty-five monuments were damaged in Sunday’s strikes, according to regional governor Oleg Kiper, who accused the Russian army of having “deliberately aimed its missiles at the historic center of Odessa”.
Reuters
The Russian army claims to target only military sites. On Sunday, she claimed to have bombed places where “terrorist acts against Russia using naval drones were in preparation”.
On Saturday, a Ukrainian operation blew up an ammunition depot in Crimea with drones, causing the evacuation of the surrounding population and the suspension of rail traffic in this peninsula annexed by Russia in 2014.
The death of a Russian journalist in a Ukrainian strike has similarly aroused the ire of the Kremlin, which evoked a “heinous crime” and promised a “response”.
On the Zaporijjia front, in southeastern Ukraine, where the largest nuclear power plant in Europe is located, occupied by the Russians, the latter said they had repelled “three attacks by the armed forces of Ukraine in the direction of Rabotino”.
Reuters
Regarding the Wagner group, the Belarusian president assured Mr. Putin that he was “keeping” it in central Belarus, a few weeks after the arrival in this country of several of his fighters.
“They are asking to + go west + (…) to Warsaw, Rzeszów”, exclaimed Mr. Lukashenko in the presence of the Russian president, who sketched a slight smile. “But, of course, that I keep them in the center of Belarus, as we had agreed”, he added, saying however that he had noted “their bad mood”.
The Belarusian leader, presented as having been the mediator between the Kremlin and Yevgeny Prigojine at the time of Wagner’s abortive rebellion in Russia at the end of June, then appeared alongside Vladimir Putin during a rare walkabout for the two leaders, in Kronstadt, near Saint Petersburg.
The two men had their photos taken with visibly enthusiastic onlookers.
Reuters
This scene, which AFP could not verify the degree of spontaneity, comes at a time when the Russian authorities have been trying to show since the aborted rebellion of Wagner that Vladimir Putin still enjoys the support of the population and the army.