Six people died and 19 were injured on Wednesday in Russian missile strikes in Ukraine, including in Odessa on the Black Sea coast, as Kiev claims slight advances on the front.
In Odessa, three people were killed and 13 injured in a Kalibr cruise missile strike, which notably hit a commercial warehouse, Serguiï Bratchouk, spokesman for the military administration of this large city in the south of the country, said on Telegram. .
Seven other employees were injured and “there could be people under the rubble,” Odessa Mayor Gennadiy Troukhanov said in a statement. The attack destroyed 1000 m2 of warehouses and caused a fire over 400 m2according to Mr. Bratchouk.
In addition to warehouse workers, six people were injured in other places in Odessa, where a business center, educational institution, residential complex, restaurants and shops were damaged.
Odessa, once a popular holiday destination for many Ukrainians and Russians and whose historic center was inscribed on UNESCO’s list of World Heritage in Danger in January, has been bombed several times since the beginning of the Russian invasion.
According to the Ukrainian Air Force, three of the four Kalibr missiles fired by Russia could be intercepted. Russian forces also launched ten Iranian-made Shahed-136/131 drones overnight from the Sea of Azov into southeastern Ukraine.
Fired from the Russian region of Rostov-on-the-Don, six X-22 type cruise missiles, on the other hand, hit the Donetsk region in eastern Ukraine.
Three people were killed there and six others injured, according to Governor Pavlo Kyrylenko.
Counteroffensive
The day before, six people including four forest guards were killed in a Russian bombardment near the border in northeastern Ukraine, the Ukrainian prosecutor’s office said on Telegram on Wednesday, posting a photo of a van riddled with shrapnel. of shrapnel.
Also on Tuesday, the hometown of President Volodymyr Zelensky, Kryvyi Rig, was targeted by a Russian strike that left at least 12 dead, according to a new report from the authorities. This attack notably affected a four-storey apartment building and a warehouse.
These Russian strikes come at a time when the Ukrainian army, backed by Western arms supplies, is on the offensive on several parts of the front in the south and east.
If Ukraine claims to be “advancing” with the recovery of seven villages, Russian President Vladimir Putin on the contrary assured Tuesday that the forces of Kiev were held in check and suffered losses close to a “catastrophic” level.
According to military analysts, Ukraine has not yet launched the bulk of its forces in its counter-offensive, testing the front line in search of weak points. Currently, these operations seem to be concentrated on three main axes: Bakhmout, the area of Vougledar and that of Orikhiv.
Over the past three days, the Ukrainians have recaptured about three square kilometers of territory and advanced in some areas up to 1.4 kilometers deep, Ukrainian General Staff Andrii Kovaliov said Wednesday.
Moscow for its part claimed for the first time on Tuesday the capture of German Leopard tanks and American Bradley armored vehicles, vehicles provided by the West.
The IAEA in Zaporizhia
The director of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), Rafael Grossi, is expected at the Zaporijjia nuclear power plant, occupied by Russia, to determine in particular whether this gigantic installation has been endangered by the destruction of the Kakhovka dam on the Dnieper River, the water from which is used to cool the six reactors.
Initially scheduled for Wednesday, this visit could be postponed to Thursday, said an official of the Russian nuclear sector without specifying the reasons. Neither kyiv nor the AEIA have so far confirmed this information.
According to Mr. Grossi, there is no “immediate danger” for the plant, but the water level in the cooling basin worries him: “There is a serious risk, because the water which is there -low is limited”.
“I want to make my own assessment,” he told reporters in Kyiv on Tuesday.
The destruction of the dam caused severe flooding in southern Ukraine, killing at least 17 people in the Russian-occupied area and ten in the Ukrainian-controlled area.
Ukraine accuses Moscow of having demolished the structure to hinder its counter-offensive. Russia, which controls the territory where the dam is located, denies and in return accuses kyiv of “sabotage”.