Russian drone attacks on the southern Ukrainian port city of Odesa on Monday morning killed at least three people and injured 15 more, according to local authorities. Among the reported dead were a 30-year-old woman, her 2-year-old daughter, and a 53-year-old woman, after a drone struck a multi-story residential building.
Odesa regional military governor Oleh Kiper stated: “Law enforcement agencies are documenting the aggressor state’s latest war crimes against the civilian population. Residential buildings, critical infrastructure, and administrative buildings were hit. Rescue operations are ongoing; there may still be people under the rubble.” Ukrainian air defense forces reported that the latest Russian air strike involved 141 drones, 114 of which were intercepted.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said on Monday that the country’s partners “need to strengthen air defense together so that the interception rate of drones and missiles continues to increase.” He added that US-led peace efforts are currently stalled, partly due to the war in the Middle East, and claimed: “Russia has no intention of stopping” its invasion of Ukraine, now in its fifth year.
Meanwhile, Ukraine has continued to carry out strikes on Russian oil export facilities, aiming to prevent Moscow from capitalizing on increased demand for Russian oil due to decreased supply from the Middle East as a result of the ongoing US-Israeli war against Iran. Over the Easter weekend, reports emerged of Ukrainian drone strikes on oil facilities in Primorsk in Russia’s Leningrad region, Kstovo near Nizhny Novgorod about 450 km east of Moscow, and the Black Sea port of Novorossiysk, where Ukrainian forces allegedly hit a Russian warship on Monday.
On the frontline, Ukrainian commander-in-chief Oleksandr Syrsky claimed on Monday that his forces have liberated 480 square kilometers (almost 300 square miles) of territory since the end of January. However, he wrote on Telegram that Russian troops are continuing attempts to establish a buffer zone in the Dnipropetrovsk region, while the Institute for the Study of War (ISW) said Ukrainian counterattacks are disrupting Russian efforts near Pokrovsk in the Donetsk region.
Source: www.dw.com