At least 20 people died after a Russian missile strike hit a civilian infrastructure in the Ukrainian city of Odesa, media reports said.
After the first missile struck Odesa on Friday morning, killing and wounding civilians, Ukrainian emergency service personnel, who had rushed to the scene, were then caught in a second strike, in an attack known as a “double tap”, used by Russia throughout more than two years of its war in Ukraine, reported CNN.
“This is the first time a double attack has happened in Odesa region,” Maryna Averina, a spokeswoman for the State Emergency Service in Odesa, told CNN.
“First responders arrived at the site of the strike and immediately began to extinguish the fire, clearing the rubble and searching for victims. And then there was a second missile strike,” she said, adding that eight rescuers had been killed.
Fifty-year-old Maria Slisovska said she was at her home when the missiles hit.
“At first our windows were still intact. Then about five minutes later there was a second blast. The ceilings were damaged. In the kitchen, plaster fell from the ceilings. Thank God my mom wasn’t in the kitchen at that moment,” she told CNN.
“The second hit blew the windows out. Then the ambulances started coming in. And then there was a strike after the paramedics arrived. The guys were dead. There were people covered in blood. We are now clearing the glass,” she said.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky described the strikes as ‘heinous’.
“Two missiles were fired, with the second hitting rescuers and medics who had arrived at the scene of the first strike,” he said.
Five injured in Ukrainian drone attack on moving car in Russia
Five people were injured in a Ukrainian drone attack on a moving car in Russia’s Belgorod Region, Governor Vyacheslav Gladkov said as quoted by Sputnik.
“A car moving along the road was attacked by the Armed Forces of Ukraine using a kamikaze drone. The incident occurred in the village of Glotovo, Grayvoronsky urban district. As a result of the explosion, the car caught fire, five people in it were injured,” Gladkov wrote on Telegram.
