The most recent Russian missile attack on a civilian building in Ukraine resulted in at least 18 deaths, including two children, and several injuries.
According to Kyiv, a nine-story apartment building in Odesa was hit overnight by an AS-4 anti-ship missile, the same type that was used earlier this week against a mall in Kremenchuk, nearly demolishing the structure.
According to local officials, 31 individuals were injured during the strike, including a pregnant mother and four infants. Rescuers can be seen looking through the debris for survivors while a frightened woman begs for assistance while a toddler sobs in the background of the video.
The Kremenchuk retail center was bombed on Monday, killing at least 20, and an apartment building in Mykolaiv was destroyed on Wednesday, killing at least eight people. This is only the third time that a Russian airstrike has targeted a civilian target in Ukraine.
Putin dismisses the accusation that Russia is purposely striking people as part of a “terror” campaign to divert attention from its unsuccessful invasion.
The Russian Tu-22 bomber is believed to have carried out the Odesa attack, which happened just hours after Putin’s soldiers left Snake Island, which is located about 90 miles off the coast of the important port city.
Following intense bombardment from Ukrainian artillery and anti-ship missile batteries, Russian soldiers were compelled to leave the 100-acre islet.
Moscow made an effort to portray the retreat as a “goodwill gesture,” using the same rhetoric it had earlier in the war when forced to flee Kyiv and Chernihiv.
Although Snake Island is of little practical value, it is strategically significant since it aids the occupation in controlling the waters off Odesa, which continues to be a major target of Russia’s invasion.
Anti-aircraft and anti-missile batteries were positioned on the island several times by Russia, but each time they were destroyed.
Helicopters and boats attempting to bolster and resupply units stationed on the island have also been successfully targeted by Ukraine.
The likelihood of an amphibious attack on Odesa, which has been feared from the beginning of the war, becomes more unlikely as the terrain is lost.
The fact that a nation with no working navy sank several of Putin’s Black Sea fleet’s ships, including the flagship Moskva, is also quite embarrassing.
‘The situation in the Black Sea changes considerably,’ Zelensky stated in his daily address on Thursday in reference to the decision to vacate Snake Island.
It is not yet a security assurance. It still does not ensure that the enemy won’t resurface. However, it already severely restricts the occupiers’ actions.
Another Russian missile struck a five-story apartment building on Wednesday in Mykolaiv, a city about 70 miles south of Odesa.
Following the discovery of a man’s body in a collapsed stairwell on Friday, Ukraine reported that the number of fatalities from that attack had increased to eight.
Additionally, earlier this week, a Russian missile struck the Amstor retail center in the Ukrainian city of Kremenchuk, killing at least 20 people.
After the missile struck on Monday at around 4 p.m. local time, another 21 persons are missing and are assumed dead.
Russia claims to have attacked two military targets in the city—a weapons warehouse at a neighboring factory and an arm-transporting railway station—and that the abandoned mall accidently caught fire as a result.
However, a number of CCTV videos that Ukraine has provided contradict such assertions, including one that shows an anti-ship missile striking the mall directly.
More video, which was released Tuesday, depicts shoppers and employees at the mall around the time of the attack.
A third group of tapes depicts a second missile hitting the factory’s northernmost portion and spewing debris onto adjacent parkgoers.
A war crime would be the purposeful targeting of people, which President Putin has denied his army is doing.
“Our army does not assault any infrastructure located in a residential area. In Ashgabat, the capital of Turkmenistan, Putin stated at a news conference that “We have every capability of understanding what is situated where.”
No one here shoots like that, at random. With “high-precision weapons,” it is typically done based on intelligence data on the targets.
Putin declared, “I am confident that this time, everything was done in this precise way.”
The Russian dictator was there for the VI Caspian Summit of leaders from Azerbaijan, Iran, Kazakhstan and Turkmenistan to discuss ‘topical concerns of cooperation in the Caspian Sea’.
It was estimated that up to 1,000 people were inside when it was struck.
In a new blow to Putin’s invasion, Russian troops swiftly left Snake Island Wednesday, just days after the Ukrainian military launched a devastating missile attack on the outpost.
In the early stages of the conflict, the defenders of Snake Island told a Russian vessel calling for their surrender to “go f*ck yourself,” sparking a rebellious meme that became a symbol of Ukrainian resistance.
Being situated next to maritime channels not far from the port of Odessa in Ukraine, it was also a strategic target. While being attacked by drones, Russia made an attempt to construct missile and air defense batteries.
But now that Ukraine is receiving longer-range missiles and military hardware from its Western sponsors, the Russian posture on Snake Island appears to have lost its viability, according to officials.
Although Kyiv declared victory, the Russian defense ministry described the pullback as “a gesture of goodwill” meant to show that Moscow will not obstruct UN efforts to organize safeguarded grain exports from Ukraine.
The chief of the Ukrainian military’s Telegram channel said, “I thank the defenders of the Odessa region who took maximal measures to free a strategically significant portion of our land.”