At least three people were killed and 15 injured in Russian drone attacks on the southern port city of Odesa on Monday morning, local authorities 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-story residential building.
“Law enforcement agencies are documenting the aggressor state’s latest war crimes against the civilian population,” regional military governor Oleh Kiper said. He added that residential buildings, critical infrastructure and administrative buildings were hit and that rescue operations were ongoing, with the possibility of people still under the rubble.
Ukraine’s air defence forces said the strike involved 141 drones, 114 of which were intercepted. Separate strikes in the northern Chernihiv region left about 340,000 people without power.
President Volodymyr Zelenskyy called for partners to strengthen air defences so interception rates for drones and missiles increase. With US-led peace efforts stalled partly because of the war in the Middle East, Zelenskyy warned that “Russia has no intention of stopping” its invasion, now in its fifth year.
Ukraine has also continued strikes on Russian oil export facilities to prevent Moscow from profiting amid increased demand linked to reduced Middle East supply. Over the Easter weekend, Ukrainian drone strikes were reported at Primorsk in the Leningrad region, Kstovo near Nizhny Novgorod, and the Black Sea port of Novorossiysk, where Ukrainian forces said they hit a Russian warship.
On Sunday evening at least one person was reported killed in Russia’s Belgorod region, while local authorities said there were 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 three hours on Sunday night, but nearly half a million Russian households were temporarily left without power.
The Washington-based Institute for the Study of War (ISW) noted Russian military bloggers said damage to oil export and energy infrastructure will be costly and time-consuming to repair, and have previously complained about inability to fix damaged facilities because of parts sanctions and air defence failures.
Speaking in Damascus on Sunday after meeting interim Syrian President Ahmed al-Sharaa, Zelenskyy said Russia was gaining additional revenue because of the Iran war and partial easing of US sanctions on Russian oil. He repeated calls for continued deliveries of air-defence munitions to Ukraine and warned, “We have to recognize that we are not the priority for today,” adding he feared a long Iran war would reduce support for Ukraine.
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 Russian troops continue efforts to establish a buffer zone in Dnipropetrovsk, while the ISW said Ukrainian counterattacks were disrupting Russian operations near Pokrovsk in the Donetsk region.
Edited by: Natalie Muller