Video of the pre-dawn attack showed the charred remains of buildings in the small town of Serhiivka, located about 31 miles southwest of Odesa.
POKROVSK, Ukraine — A Russian airstrike on residential areas killed at least 21 people early Friday near the Ukrainian port of Odesa, authorities reported, a day after the withdrawal of Moscow’s forces from an island in the Black Sea had seemed to ease the threat to the city.
Russian forces took control of the island in the opening days of the war in the apparent hope of using it as a staging ground for an assault on Odesa, Ukraine’s biggest port and the headquarters of its navy.“The occupiers cannot win on the battlefield, so they resort to vile killing of civilians,” said Ivan Bakanov, head of Ukraine’s security service, the SBU. “After the enemy was dislodged from Snake Island, he decided to respond with the cynical shelling of civilian targets.
Russian missiles struck the Kyiv region last weekend after weeks of relative calm around the capital and an airstrike Monday on a shopping mall in the central city of Kremenchuk killed at least 19 people. Ukrainian President Volodymr Zelenskyy noted that as in Monday’s shopping mall attack in Kremenchuk, Russian forces on Friday appeared to use anti-ship missiles to hit Serhiivka.
“Snake Island is key for controlling the Black Sea and could help cover the Russian attack if the Kremlin opted for an amphibious landing operation in Odesa or elsewhere in the region,” he said. “Now those plans are pushed back.” Zelenskyy said that although the pullout did not guarantee the Black Sea region’s safety, it would “significantly limit” Russian activities there.
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