Kremlin: overnight attack on Odesa ‘retaliatory strike for Crimean Bridge’

The Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov has referred to the overnight attack on the “critical infrastructure facilities” in the city of Odesa carried out by the Russian army as a “retaliatory strike for the Crimean Bridge”, as per Russian state news agency RIA Novosti.

In its morning bulletin, the Russian Defence Ministry called the attack on Odesa a “retaliatory strike”. 

Earlier in the day, the Ukrainian Operational Command South stated that Odesa was attacked with six Kalibr missiles from the direction of the Black Sea, they were all shot down by air defence. The debris from the fallen missiles and the blast wave damaged the port infrastructure facilities and several private houses. An elderly man was injured, he was hospitalised. Furthermore, 21 Shahed-136 drones were shot down in the air space of the Odesa region.

In the Mykolaiv region, the head of the regional military administration Vitalii Kim reported an attack. “Initial assessment is that there are no victims,” he wrote. The Operational Command South clarified that four Shahed drones were shot down in the air space of the Mykolaiv region.

In the early hours of 17 July, one of the sections of the Crimean Bridge was destroyed in an explosion that killed a man and a woman who were passing the bridge in a passenger car; their daughter was injured.

The Investigative Committee of Russia initiated a criminal case under the terrorism article. Russia’s National Antiterrorism Committee stated it has opened a criminal case, calling the explosion a terrorist attack and adding that it was “carried out at 3.05 AM by two Ukrainian unmanned surface vehicles”.