Russian missiles struck Ukraine’s Black Sea port city of Odessa on Friday, killing 20 people including rescue workers, with President Volodymyr Zelensky calling the attack “despicable.”

AFP journalists at the scene saw bodies covered in blankets strewn in the streets, while images released by officials showed exhausted emergency services workers covered in blood and dirt as they doused the flames and treated injured colleagues.

Local authorities said Russian airstrikes hit residential buildings, ambulances and gas pipelines, killing at least 20 people and injuring 73 others, including rescue workers.

Maria Slyzovska, who witnessed the attack, said the first attack shook her mother’s home and “everything was destroyed” before the second missile strike.

“There were a lot of people there. There was blood and ambulances. We were all living in a Russian roulette reality,” she told AFP.

Zelensky said Russian forces launched a so-called “double-tap” attack on the port hub, with a second missile hitting rescue workers at the scene.

City officials said Moscow launched Iskander missiles from the Crimean peninsula, which was annexed by Russia in 2014, targeting Odessa.

“Russian terrorist activity in Odessa is a sign of weakness on the part of an enemy who is fighting Ukrainian civilians while failing to guarantee the safety of its own people on its own soil,” presidential assistant Andrei Yermak said.

Kyiv and Moscow exchange barrages

There was no immediate comment on the attack from Russia, whose military regularly targets transport hubs with drones and missiles.

The attack came on the first day of Russia’s presidential election, which is also taking place in several occupied regions of Ukraine, and angered Kiev.

U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres and more than 50 member states condemned Moscow for holding the vote in parts of Ukraine, with Guterres saying “attempts to illegally annex” the areas “have no validity” under international law, a spokesman said. Stephen Dujarric.

Russia’s deputy ambassador to the United Nations, Dmitry Polyansky, said he would not comment on criticism of “our internal affairs.”

Friday’s attack was just the latest in a series of deadly clashes between Kiev and Moscow as polls begin across Russia.

Kiev said a Russian drone strike killed two people in the Vinnitsa region of central Ukraine, and shelling from the front line in the Zaporozhye region killed a woman.

National police said a Russian drone strike killed a 52-year-old man and his 53-year-old wife in the Vinnitsa region, more than 400 kilometers (250 miles) from the front lines.

Ukrainian Governor Ivan Fedorov said a 76-year-old woman was killed in her garden by a Russian shell fragment in the southern Zaporozhye region, which Moscow claimed it had annexed and partially controlled.

try to break through

Meanwhile, Moscow-appointed officials in the Russian-controlled city of Donetsk said a “brutal” Ukrainian attack on a residential complex left three children dead.

Alexey Kulemzin, Russia’s appointed mayor of Donetsk, wrote on Telegram: “Three children died. A girl born in 2007 and a girl born in 2021 , a boy born in 2014.”

Russia also said Ukraine had launched drone and artillery attacks in areas close to the two countries’ shared border.

Vyacheslav Gladkov, governor of Russia’s Belgorod region, posted on Telegram: “The town of Grayveron was shelled by Ukrainian troops.”

“One person died. He was a member of our territorial self-defense force,” he said.

Gradkov later added that shrapnel killed another person and wounded two others in shelling in the city of Belgorod.

Attacks on Russia’s border areas have increased after Russian troops seized the city of Avdievka, a few kilometers north of Donetsk, last month.

The statement said that pushing back Ukrainian forces would help protect residents in areas under their control from shelling.
Ukraine’s army chief said on Friday that Russia had launched a wave of attacks in an attempt to advance further in the region.

“The enemy concentrated its main forces and tried to break through for several days,” Ukrainian commander-in-chief Alexander Silsky said in a statement after inspecting the front lines around Avdievka.