Two missiles fired from a TU-22 fighter destroy a nine-storey building and a recreation center on the shores of the Black Sea a few days after the massacre in a shopping center in Kremenchuk
At least 19 people have died and 31 have been injured as a result of a new Russian air attack on civilian enclaves; specifically, a recreation center and a residential building located in the Bilhorod-Dnistrovsky district, in Odessa. Among the victims are four children, one of whom has died, and a pregnant woman who has been rescued alive from the rubble. The rescue teams continue their work in search of survivors after having managed to locate seven people alive under the ruins.
The bombardment occurred this past morning, in the midst of the offensive by Russian aviation and artillery on different points in southeastern Ukraine. According to the first estimates of the General Staff, it was a Tu-22 plane that launched the “powerful and heavy” rockets that caused the catastrophe. This aircraft equips the stealthy X-22 missiles, characterized by their high explosive capacity and very high precision, fine-tuned after the first models registered reliability problems decades ago. One of them hit directly against a nine-story building while the second fell on a recreation center. Most of the fatalities, fourteen, lost their lives in the apartment block. Several witnesses have indicated that one of the building’s entrances “has completely collapsed” and the screams of the survivors could be heard among the ruins, according to the local press.
Firefighters work to search for survivors /
The confusion continues in the area. Firefighters are not ruling out the discovery of more bodies as they inspect the remains of the building, although no missing persons have been reported so far. Neighborhood testimonies indicate that the explosion shook all the floors and that the facade literally collapsed. Odessa is the main port on the Black Sea and its region has been in the crosshairs of the Russian artillery since the beginning of the invasion, although the fire has been more intense in the last two months, when Moscow was especially keen to cut off Ukraine’s outlet to the sea. The President of the European Council, Charles Michel, was surprised by shells in this strategic port on May 9, during a visit to show the EU’s support for the Ukrainians.
This latest bombardment has particularly affected the tourist town of Serhiyivka, a settlement of just 5,000 inhabitants at the mouth of Lake Budaki, on the same shore of the Black Sea. Some sources suggest that the recreational center, made up of two floors that have been swept away by the explosion, could belong to the facilities of a spa.
The outrage and alarm are perceptible in digital media and social networks. Repeated bombing of civilian targets seems to have become a constant feature of the invasion. The embers of the fire that last Monday, June 28, devoured a shopping center in Kremenchuk after being hit by a missile have not yet been extinguished. The explosion killed around twenty people and left forty missing for whom any hope of being located has already been lost. According to Moscow, its offensive in Kremenchuk was directed against an ammunition warehouse that, when deflated, affected an abandoned shopping center. The presumption that the establishment was closed is denied by both the number of deaths and the images of the disaster.
The second projectile has leveled a recreation center /
The offensive this morning was, in reality, part of a rain of fire. Ukrainian authorities have reported other rocket attacks in Kharkov and Mykolaiv, as well as mortar fire in the Chernigov region, although no casualties have been reported in any of these cases. The General Staff draws attention to the coincidence of this wave of artillery just at the close of the NATO Summit in Madrid and the withdrawal of Russian troops from the strategic Snake Island.
The Kremlin has justified this withdrawal as a “goodwill gesture” to show that its intention is not to block the flow of grain through the Black Sea. On the other hand, the British Intelligence this morning has joined the position of kyiv, according to which the withdrawal would have been due to the constant harassment of the Ukrainian troops against the Russian garrison. President Volodymyr Zelensky has said in his usual morning speech that the march of the invaders of the Snake Island “considerably changes the situation” of the confrontation that is being experienced in the Black Sea, since it “limits the actions of the occupiers” . The British Prime Minister, Boris Johnson, has also highlighted the value of this withdrawal, which he considers an achievement of the Ukrainian troops (as happened previously with “the withdrawal from kyiv and Kharkov”) and underpins his thesis that the war “will end » according to the conditions established by kyiv and not by Moscow.
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