At least three people were killed and 15 injured in Russian drone attacks on the southern port city of Odesa on Monday morning, local officials said. Among the dead were a 30-year-old woman and her 2-year-old daughter, and a 53-year-old woman after a drone struck a multi-storey residential building. Regional military governor Oleh Kiper said, “Law enforcement agencies are documenting the aggressor state’s latest war crimes against the civilian population.” He added that residential blocks, critical infrastructure and administrative buildings were hit and that rescue work continued amid concerns people may still be trapped under the rubble.
Ukraine’s air-defence forces said the assault involved 141 drones, of which 114 were intercepted. Separate strikes in the northern Chernihiv region left around 340,000 people without power. President Volodymyr Zelenskyy urged partners to bolster air-defence supplies so interception rates for drones and missiles can rise, warning that “Russia has no intention of stopping” its invasion as the conflict enters its fifth year. He also noted that US-led peace initiatives have been partly stalled by the war in the Middle East.
Ukrainian forces have continued strikes on Russian oil-export facilities to limit Moscow’s revenues as demand rises amid reduced Middle East supply. Over the Easter weekend Ukrainian drone attacks were reported at Primorsk in Leningrad region, Kstovo near Nizhny Novgorod, and the Black Sea port of Novorossiysk, where Kyiv said it struck a Russian warship.
On Sunday evening at least one person was reported killed in Russia’s Belgorod region. Local authorities also reported attacks on Sevastopol in Russian-occupied Crimea and on a cargo ship carrying wheat in the Sea of Azov. The Russian military said it intercepted almost 150 Ukrainian drones over a three-hour period on Sunday night, though the strikes left nearly half a million Russian households temporarily without power.
The Washington-based Institute for the Study of War (ISW) noted Russian military bloggers have said damage to oil-export and energy infrastructure will be expensive and time-consuming to repair, and have previously complained of difficulties fixing damaged facilities because of parts sanctions and problems with air-defence systems.
Speaking in Damascus after meeting interim Syrian President Ahmed al-Sharaa, Zelenskyy said Russia was gaining extra revenue because of the Iran war and the partial easing of US sanctions on Russian oil. He reiterated calls for continued deliveries of air-defence munitions to Ukraine and cautioned, “We have to recognize that we are not the priority for today,” expressing concern that a prolonged Iran war could reduce international support for Kyiv.
On the eastern front, Ukrainian commander-in-chief Oleksandr Syrskyi said his forces had liberated about 480 square kilometres since the end of January. He warned that Russian troops are trying to establish a buffer zone in Dnipropetrovsk, while the ISW reported that Ukrainian counterattacks are disrupting Russian operations near Pokrovsk in Donetsk region.