Ukraine says Russian missile attacks kill three in Odesa, three in Donetsk

[June 14, 2023]  KYIV (Reuters) -Overnight Russian missile attacks killed three people in the Black Sea city of Odesa and three in the Donetsk region of eastern Ukraine, Ukrainian officials said on Wednesday.

The three killed in Odesa were in a retail chain warehouse that was set ablaze during an attack that damaged a business centre, an educational institution, a residential complex, food establishments and shops, Ukraine's military said.

A view shows a shopping mall and apartment buildings damaged by a Russian missile strike, amid Russia's attack on Ukraine, in Odesa, Ukraine June 14, 2023. Press Service of the the Operational Command South of the Ukrainian Armed Forces/Handout via REUTERS

Video and photographs posted online by a local official showed multi-storey buildings with parts of their walls missing and windows blown out, and firefighters battling flames in what appeared be a warehouse.

Pavlo Kyrylenko, governor of the Donetsk region, said two people had been killed in the city of Kramatorsk and one in the industrial city of Kostiantynivka.

"The missiles ... hit private houses in the cities and caused significant damage: in Kramatorsk, at least 5 private houses were destroyed and about two dozen damaged, in Kostiantynivka, two were destroyed and 55 damaged," he said.

Ukraine's air force said it had destroyed three Russian missiles and nine drones during the overnight strikes, the latest launched by Russia since its full-scale invasion in February 2022.

In the northeastern region of Sumy, the Ukrainian prosecutor's office said four forest workers and two other civilians had been killed when their car came under fire on Tuesday in a forest close to the border with Russia.

Reuters could not independently verify the reports. There was no immediate comment from Russia. Both Russia and Ukraine deny targeting civilians in their military operations.

(Reporting by Lidia Kelly in Melbourne and Pavel Polityuk in Kyiv; Editing by Simon Cameron-Moore and Timothy Heritage)

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