Ukraine says Russian strike on Odesa killed 5, including three-month-old infant

Kyiv says 18 people wounded in missile attack on Black Sea port, which hit military facility and two residential buildings; Moscow continues assault on last Mariupol stronghold

A Russian strike killed at least five people, including a baby, and wounded 18 others in Ukraine’s Black Sea city of Odesa on Saturday, Kyiv said, warning the toll would likely rise.

“Five Ukrainians killed and 18 wounded. And those are only the ones that we were able to find. It is likely that the death toll will be heavy,” the head of Ukraine’s presidential office Andriy Yermak said on Telegram. “A three-month-old baby was among those killed.”

Earlier on Saturday, Ukraine’s Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba said: “The only aim of Russian missile strikes on Odesa is terror.”

Ukraine’s air force said its defense systems intercepted two Russian TU-95 missiles that it said were fired from the Caspian Sea.

But it said four other missiles hit the city, including civilian infrastructure.

“Unfortunately, two missiles hit a military facility and two hit residential buildings,” the air force’s southern command said on Facebook.

Odesa, a largely Russian-speaking city and cultural hub, has been targeted previously by Moscow’s forces which were rebuffed by Ukraine.

Meanwhile, an adviser to Ukraine’s presidential office said on Saturday that Russian forces are attacking a steel plant that is the last defense stronghold of Ukrainian forces in the strategic port city of Mariupol.

Servicemen of Donetsk People’s Republic militia walk past damaged vehicles during heavy fighting in an area controlled by Russian-backed separatist forces in Mariupol, Ukraine, on April 19, 2022. (AP Photo/Alexei Alexandrov)

Oleksiy Arestovich, an adviser to the head of Ukraine’s presidential office, said during a briefing on Saturday that the Russian forces have resumed airstrikes on Azovstal and were trying to storm it.

“The enemy is trying to completely suppress resistance of the defenders of Mariupol in the area of Azovstal,” Arestovich said.

Arestovich’s statement came two days after Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu reported to Russian President Vladimir Putin that the whole of Mariupol, with the exception of Azovstal, had been “liberated” by the Russians.

Putin ordered the Russian military not to storm the plant and instead to block it off in an apparent attempt to stifle the remaining pocket of resistance there.

Ukrainian officials have estimated that about 2,000 of their troops are inside the plant along with about 1,000 sheltering in the facility’s underground tunnels.

Arestovich says the Ukrainian fighters are still holding on despite the resumed attacks and are even trying to counter them.