Russia attack on Ukraine’s Odesa kills at least 1, ‘destroys’ UN-protected cathedral
- Officials retrieved the icon of the port city’s patroness from the rubble, with missiles also destroying flats and injuring more than 20, including children
- Russia has been pounding Odesa and other Ukrainian food export facilities after it withdrew from a deal to allow for the safe shipment of Ukrainian grain
Russia struck the Ukrainian Black Sea city of Odesa again on Sunday, local officials said, keeping up a barrage of attacks that have damaged critical port infrastructure in southern Ukraine in the past week.
At least one person was killed and 22 others wounded in the attack in the early hours, which also badly damaged a Russian-linked Orthodox cathedral. Officials said they retrieved the icon of the patroness of the port city from under the rubble.
“A man born in 1974 was killed in the nighttime shelling,” Igor Klymenko, Ukraine’s minister of internal affairs, said on Telegram. “Twenty-two people were injured. Among them are four children: 11, 12, and two 17-year-olds.”
Oleh Kiper, governor of southern Ukraine’s Odesa region, said the missile attacks had also destroyed six houses and blocks of flats. “Odesa: another night attack of the monsters,” he said on Telegram.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky vowed to retaliate against Russian forces.
“Missiles against peaceful cities, against residential buildings, a cathedral,” he said. “There will definitely be a retaliation against Russian terrorists for Odesa. They will feel this retaliation.”
