ODESSA, Ukraine — Russia again struck the Ukrainian Black Sea city of Odessa Sunday, local officials said, continuing a series of attacks that damaged critical port infrastructure in southern Ukraine last week. At least one person was killed and 22 others injured in an early morning attack.
Oleg Kiper, the region’s governor, said four children were among those injured in the explosions, who severely damaged the historic Spaso-Preobrazhensky Cathedral, the city’s iconic Orthodox church.
Russia has been under constant attack on Odessa, a key grain export hub, since Moscow canceled a landmark grain deal on Monday amid Kyiv’s push to retake the occupied territories.
Kiper noted that six residential buildings, including apartment buildings, were destroyed as a result of the strikes.
In one such case in the center of Odessa, several people were trapped in their apartments as a result of damage caused by a terrorist attack that left rubble on the street, partially blocking the road, and also damaged power lines.
85-year-old Svetlana Molcharova was rescued by employees of the Ministry of Emergency Situations. But after she was given first aid, she refused to leave her destroyed apartment.
“I will stay here,” she told an emergency worker who advised her to leave.
“I woke up when the ceiling started to fall on me. I ran out into the corridor,” said 19-year-old Ivan Kovalenko, another resident of the house. He came to Odessa after fleeing Mykolaiv in search of a safer place to live after his house was destroyed.
“This is how I lost my house in Nikolaev, and here I lost a rented apartment.”
The ceiling in his house partially collapsed, the balcony was torn off the wall of the building, all the windows were smashed out.
The Transfiguration Cathedral, one of the most important and largest Orthodox cathedrals in Odessa, was badly damaged.
“The destruction is colossal, half of the cathedral is now without a roof,” said Archdeacon Andrei Palchuk, as cathedral workers removed documents and valuables from the badly damaged building, the floor of which was flooded with water used by firefighters to extinguish the fire.
According to Palchuk, the damage was caused by a direct hit from a Russian missile that penetrated the building to the basement and caused significant damage. Two people who were inside at the time of impact were injured.
“But with God’s help, we will restore it,” he said, bursting into tears.
The historic center of Odessa was included by the UN cultural agency UNESCO in the list of endangered world heritage sites earlier this year, despite opposition from Russia.
Earlier this week, Russian attacks damaged a significant portion of export facilities in Odessa and nearby Chornomorsk and destroyed 60,000 tons of grain, according to the Ukrainian Ministry of Agriculture.
The attacks come days after President Vladimir Putin withdrew Russia from the Black Sea Grain Initiative, a wartime deal that allowed Ukrainian exports to reach many countries facing the threat of famine.
Putin vowed to retaliate against Kyiv for Monday’s attack on the key Kerch Bridge connecting Russia to the Crimean peninsula, which the Kremlin illegally annexed in 2014.
Source: NPR
