The southern city’s council has said on social media that a teenage boy was on Monday killed in a fresh Russian strike on Ukraine’s Black Sea port of Odessa.
“As a result of a missile strike in Odessa, a residential building which had five people in it at the time of the attack, was damaged. A 15-year-old boy died,” Odessa city council said on Telegram.
Also read: Zelensky slams Russia for hinting Hitler had ‘Jewish blood’
It is reported that a girl was hospitalised, but gave no details on the other three people in the building.
The statement came after Ukraine said there was a new strike on Odessa.
Also read: ‘No plans’ for Joe Biden visit to Ukraine at this point, White House confirms
“The enemy fired a missile at one of Odessa’s infrastructure facilities,” regional governor Maxim Marchenko said earlier on Monday.
“Unfortunately, there are dead and wounded,” he said.
Also read: Vladimir Putin fighting cancer, transfers Russia’s power to ex-FSB chief: Report
Odessa, a largely Russian-speaking city and cultural hub, has seen increased attacks by Moscow in recent weeks.
Late last month, five people were killed, including a three-month-old baby girl, in a Russian strike on the city.
Russia has regrouped its forces to attack Ukraine’s south and east, where fighting is heavy.
Also read: European Union fissures surface as Russia threatens gas cuts
Meanwhile, the outskirts of Kharkiv have the feel of an open-air morgue, where the dead lie unclaimed and unexplained, sometimes for weeks on end, as Ukrainian and Russian forces fight for control of slivers of land.
There is the charred body of a man, unidentifiable, propped on an anti-tank barrier made of crossed I-beams outside a town that has been under the control of both sides in recent days.
Also read: Sergey Lavrov’s comments ‘Hitler had Jewish blood’ leave Israel govt fuming
There are the dead soldiers, apparently Russian, four of them arranged in a Z like the military symbol found on Russian armoured vehicles, visible to the Russian drones that continuously buzz overhead. The door to an apartment opens to three bodies inside.
Kharkiv, Ukraine’s second-largest city, has been under sustained Russian attack since the beginning of the war in late February. With the Russian offensive intensifying in the east, the Russian onslaught has grown fiercer.