Deadly Russian missile strikes hit southern and eastern Ukraine on Wednesday, June 14, as the Western-backed country’s air defences fought back against Moscow’s intensified attacks.

Russia fired four Kalibr missiles on the southern port city of Odesa from a warship in the Black Sea, Ukraine’s air force said, with air defences shooting down three of them.

One of the missiles hit a food warehouse, killing three employees and wounding seven, the head of the region’s military administration, Oleg Kiper, said on Telegram.

“There may be people under the rubble,” he added.

Six other people were wounded after a business centre, shops and a residential complex in central Odesa were damaged “as a result of air combat and the blast wave”, he said.

A historic city on the Black Sea, Odesa was once a favourite holiday destination for many Ukrainians and Russians.

It has been repeatedly bombed since Russia invaded in February last year.

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In January, the United Nations cultural agency UNESCO designated the city’s historic centre as a World Heritage in Danger site.

In the eastern cities of Kramatorsk and Kostiantynivka, Russian missile strikes overnight killed three people and destroyed dozens of private houses, regional authorities said.

According to AFP, Kyiv also reported that Russian shelling of a van in northeastern Ukraine, near the border with Russia, had left six people dead a day earlier.

Ukrainian prosecutors said the Soviet-era van was hit near the village of Seredyna-Buda, on the border with Russia in the northeastern region of Sumy. Four of the victims were foresters, they said.

Moscow has intensified its nightly attacks on major Ukrainian cities in recent weeks while Kyiv has launched a long-awaited counter-offensive to reclaim territory occupied by Russian forces.

Ukraine, on Wednesday, said in the last three days Kyiv has retaken around three square kilometres (about one square mile) of territory and advanced in some areas as deep as 1.4 kilometres, while fighting continued near recaptured villages.

The latest strikes came as the death toll from Tuesday’s missile strikes on Kryvyi Rig – the hometown of President Volodymyr Zelensky – rose to 12.

Authorities in the central Dnipropetrovsk region, which includes Kryvyi Rig, also reported a fresh Russian drone attack overnight.

“All three ‘Shaheds’ were shot down in the sky over the region,” regional governor Sergiy Lysak said on Telegram, referring to the Iranian attack drones used by Russia.

While Kyiv says it was making gains after launching its counter-offensive, Putin on Tuesday claimed his forces were inflicting “catastrophic” losses on Ukrainian troops.

The Star