At least six people have been killed, 11 others injured – seven of them seriously – by a Russian missile strike in the southern Ukrainian port city of Odessa, authorities said.
“The enemy’s target was once again the port infrastructure,’’ the region’s military governor, Oleh Kiper, wrote on Telegram.
The governor said that a civilian container freighter flying the flag of Panama was also hit.
The victims are Ukrainian citizens.
This is the third attack on a civilian ship in the past four days, according to Kiper.
Russia is trying to block the grain corridor set up by Ukraine.
Russia closed the Ukrainian sea ports at the beginning of its war of aggression.
Due to the importance of Ukraine for the global agricultural market, both countries agreed to establish a grain corridor for a limited time.
In July 2023, Moscow allowed the agreement to expire. Later, Kiev itself organised a sea route also by expelling Russian warships from the western Black Sea.
Ukraine said it struck Russian depot with Iranian drones
Meanwhile, the Ukrainian military said it attacked and destroyed a drone depot in the southern Russian region of Krasnodar.
There was an additional explosion after the direct hit, the Ukrainian General Staff said.
It said that around 400 Iranian-made Shahed drones were stored in the targeted building.
“The destruction of the Shahed UAV storage base will significantly reduce the ability of the Russian occupiers to terrorise the peaceful residents of Ukrainian towns and villages.’’
The General Staff said in a post on Telegram.
Russian authorities confirmed a fire in a warehouse near the settlement of Oktyabrsky.
The area has been cordoned off extensively, with approximately 800 square metres engulfed in flames, according to the regional operations staff in the Krasnodar region.
The coordinates match those reported by Kiev regarding the drone strike.
However, the Russian operations staff provided no information on the cause of the fire or the objects stored there.
Russia reports recapture of villages in its Kursk region
Earlier, the Russian military said that it has recaptured two small villages in Russia’s Kursk region from the Ukrainian army.
The villages identified as Pokrovsky and Novaya Sorochina, were described as small hamlets with only a few houses.
Russia’s state-run news agency, RIA Novosti, released a video of the alleged advance, though Ukrainian sources have not confirmed the claim.
Ukrainian military bloggers did not alter their front line maps and the General Staff in Kiev provided no detailed comment on the situation.
In its Wednesday morning report, Ukraine suggested that Russian forces were bombing their own villages in the area.
The villages are located several kilometres within what Ukrainian military observers consider occupied territory.
This could indicate that Russia’s initially slow counteroffensive is starting to push back Ukrainian forces.
On Tuesday evening, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky spoke of the strategic importance of advancing into Russian territory to increase pressure on Moscow.
He said Ukrainian troops first crossed the border into Russia in early August, which marked the first time the ground offensive shifted into Russian territory.
According to Kiev, about 1,000 square kilometres are now under Ukrainian control.
