Ukraine-Russia war latest: Odesa hit in ‘massive’ strike as Putin’s troops unleash 200 missiles and drones

Ukraine and Russia ​accused each other of lethal attacks on Sunday, as President Volodymyr Zelensky said Moscow was targeting global food security by striking Odesa’s seaport.

Three people were killed and 37 wounded in the eastern Ukrainian city of Kharkiv, where a multi-storey apartment block was hit, while authorities in Russia’s Belgorod said five were killed and 25 wounded by a Ukrainian drone attack.

Zelensky said Odesa’s seaport had been damaged by a strike. Local authorities said dozens of drones and missiles hit the southern ⁠seaside city, wounding a dozen people.

“In this way, the Russians are at war with the world’s food security,” Zelensky said.

Odesa’s seaports are the artery for Ukraine’s vast agricultural exports. He ⁠said Russia also hit nine other Ukrainian regions on Sunday.

Russia’s defense ministry on Sunday said its forces had shot down 153 Ukrainian drones during the night, including over Russian-occupied Crimea and the Black and Azov seas.

In Russia’s Belgorod region, authorities said Ukrainian drone strikes damaged 29 apartment blocks and five private houses, as well as administrative buildings and unspecified “commercial facilities.”

Debris from Ukrainian drones also fell on two enterprises and a private home in the Russian city of Novorossiysk, mayor Andrey Kravchenko said on Sunday. He did not specify what the commercial sites were.

Regional authorities later said falling debris had injured one person, damaged two private houses, and blew out a window in an apartment block.

A major fuel terminal is located at Novorossiysk that links Kazakhstan’s oil fields to markets around the world, and which has previously been a target for Ukrainian strikes.

Russia and Ukraine exchanged strikes overnight that killed civilians and injured many others on both sides, local authorities reported.

Large-scale Russian missile strikes on Ukrainian cities have become almost routine in recent weeks, with Moscow exploiting Ukraine’s critical shortage of interceptors for the U.S.-made Patriot systems — the sole air defence weapon in its arsenal able to shoot down ballistic missiles.

In the latest attacks, Ukrainian drones killed five people and injured two dozen others, including a 4-year-old boy, in Russia’s border region of Belgorod, according to the regional administration.

In Kharkiv, Ukraine’s second-largest city, Russian missiles struck a high-rise apartment block in the Saltivskyi district, killing two people and injuring 13, according to regional head Oleh Syniehubov.

Eight more people were injured in Ukraine’s Black Sea port of Odesa after “dozens of missiles and drones” struck the city and surrounding region, according to local administration head Oleh Kiper.

Pope Leo on Sunday said innocent people are being killed and wounded in Ukraine and Russia, and called for an end to the conflict.

“Tragic incidents ⁠are multiplying, causing an ever-growing number of civilian victims, including children,” the pontiff said before worshippers gathered for Sunday’s Angelus prayer.

“I renew my heartfelt appeal for `international humanitarian law to be respected `and for attacks against civilian targets to cease on both sides,” the pope added.

More than 16,000 civilians have been killed ​in ⁠nearly 4-1/2 years of fighting, ‌according to the U.N., the overwhelming majority of them Ukrainian.

The U.N. human rights office said in July civilian injuries and deaths had increased by more than a third in Ukraine in the first half of the year, driven by rising numbers of drone attacks.

Meanwhile Kyiv is also responding with waves of drone attacks on Russia.

A U.N. official said last month civilians living in Ukrainian territories under Russian occupation and inside Russia were also being killed.

Five people died in a Ukrainian overnight drone attack on the Russian city ⁠of Belgorod, the regional crisis centre said on Sunday.

Alexander Shuvayev, the acting governor of Belgorod region, earlier said three people were killed and 25 others, including two children, injured.

The death toll later rose to five.

Shuvayev said ⁠the attack sparked fires in two ​apartment buildings ⁠and a large ‌number of residential and non-residential buildings were damaged.

Russia’s Defence Ministry said it had destroyed more than 150 Ukrainian drones over the European part of the country, as well as over Crimea, the Black Sea and the Sea of Azov.

In Novorossiysk, a major Russian export port on the Black Sea, drone debris fell on two facilities, local mayor Andrei Kravchenko said, without identifying the sites.

The local crisis centre later said three residential buildings were damaged and one person was injured. In Bashkortostan ⁠region, a Ukrainian drone struck a ⁠building under construction and a crane in the ‌city of ​Ufa, state-run RIA news ‌agency reported, citing local ​emergency services.

Here’s all we know about the explosive drone incident at Leipzig airport:

It was first reported early on Wednesday that German police had been called in to investigate a suspicious object found near a runway at the airport after an ‘overnight security incident’ halted traffic.

The southern runway was closed while specialists examined the object using explosives-disposal technology, a police spokesperson said.

Germany’s Bild newspaper reported that the drone had been found lying in the immediate vicinity of a Ukrainian Antonov cargo plane.

Wes Streeting has urged allies to boost Ukraine’s air defences ahead of a winter that Vladimir Putin will seek to use as a “weapon” against Kyiv.

The defence secretary visited Ukraine last week to discuss preparations for the winter, a season where in previous years Moscow has targeted the country’s energy infrastructure in a bid to freeze it into submission.

Writing in the Sunday Times, Mr Streeting said: “Winter in Ukraine is no longer a season. It is a weapon.”

Arguing that while Putin was currently losing the war, now in its fifth year, he warned that “Ukrainians know what winter brings, and how it can change the picture”.

He said: “I return from Kyiv with a clear understanding of what Ukraine needs to weather this winter.

“Where the UK can provide that resource, we will. And where we cannot, it is my job to mobilise allies to find that capability.”

Ukraine paid tribute on Saturday to Oleksiy Yukov, a volunteer who spent more than two decades recovering bodies of civilians and soldiers — many of them Russian — killed by war.

An Orthodox Christian service was held at the Cathedral of Saint Volodymyr, in central Kyiv, where thousands of people gathered to pay their respects following his death in a landmine explosion during a recovery mission on Wednesday.

Mourners also gathered at Kyiv’s main Maidan Square, many dropping to their knees as a sign of respect as his casket was brought to the site. Memorial services were also held in other cities.

Yukov, 40, founded the organisation known as Platsdarm, or Bridgehead, because he believed that all the dead deserve a proper burial. He became known as a “collector of souls.”

Kyiv launched another drone strike on a Wildberries warehouse yesterday in Yekaterinburg, Russia, marking the 20th such attack since 18 July as part of a three-week campaign to ‘bring the war home’ to ordinary Russians.

The latest incident involved three drones hitting the roof of the logistics centre, though the company reported the resulting blaze was contained and most goods remained undamaged.

Satellite imagery from Reuters indicates that these Ukrainian attacks have collectively destroyed one-fifth of the Russian online retailer Wildberries’ total storage capacity.