Four killed and 10 injured in latest Russian missile strike on Ukraine’s Odesa region 

Four people were killed and another 10 were injured in a Russian missile strike on Ukraine’s southern Odesa region on Thursday evening, Odesa Governor Oleh Kiper said.

A two-storey building where “civilians lived and worked” was destroyed by a ballistic missile, Kiper said, leaving people trapped in the ruins. Three people including a 16-year-old girl died under the rubble, while a fourth person later died of her injuries in hospital, he added.

Rescuers had been able to save four people, he said, with nine of the 10 people wounded in the attack hospitalised with their injuries, four of whom were in critical condition. A further 10 people also received psychological support at the scene of the attack, Kiper said.

The State Emergency Service of Ukraine said that rescue operations had been complicated due to an air raid warning going off as rescuers were working at the scene, describing Russia’s double-tap missile strike as evidence of the country’s “baseness and vileness”.

The Thursday evening strike was the latest in a series of Russian attacks on the Odesa region in recent days, with Moscow increasingly targeting the key agricultural export hub’s infrastructure. Friday has been declared a day of mourning for those killed in Russian strikes on the region over the past week.

Kiper said on Friday morning that the death toll from a Russian attack on a Panama-flagged civilian container ship in the Odesa region port of Chornomorsk on Wednesday had risen to nine, with Ukraine’s Minister of Agrarian Policy and Food Vitaliy Koval revealing on Thursday that the vessel had been transporting UN-sanctioned humanitarian aid to Palestine.

Writing on X after Wednesday’s attack, Ukrainian Foreign Minister Andriy Sybiha reiterated his call for the international community to condemn Russian attacks on civilian targets and to “take action to stop the aggressor” to ensure freedom of navigation and global food security.