Ukraine: “Massive” Russian bombings in the south

Ukraine’s southern regions came under “massive” Russian bombardment on Tuesday, which specifically targeted a coastal village near Odessa and the port of Mykolaiv, Ukrainian officials announced.

The Russian strikes come despite an agreement signed last week with Moscow to block Ukrainian grain exports critical to global food security through three ports in the Odesa region.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky posted a video on his social media on Tuesday showing destroyed houses in Zatoka, a popular Black Sea resort near Odessa.

“It’s morning. An ordinary Zatoka village. People rested and lived. No bases, no troops. Russian terrorists wanted to shoot,” he wrote in one comment.

The Southern Command of the Ukrainian military announced on Tuesday “massive missile strikes in southern Ukraine using aircraft from the Black Sea”.

“In Odessa, residential buildings in coastal settlements were hit without damage, according to preliminary information,” the military said in a statement on Facebook.

According to the same source, “port infrastructure was targeted in the Mykolaiv region”.

Mykolaiv regional governor Vitaly Kim released a video showing multiple explosions and black smoke in what he described as a “massive strike” in the city on Tuesday morning.

“According to the main information, a critical infrastructure facility and an automotive company have not suffered any casualties,” he wrote in a telegram.

“Missiles also targeted the outskirts of the city, and there were attempts to damage port infrastructure”, according to the same source.

To the east, three civilians have been killed in the Donetsk region (east) in the past 24 hours, Governor Pavlo Kyrilenko announced on Tuesday.

“There is not a single part of the Donetsk region that is unaffected and relatively safe,” Kyrilenko said in an interview with Ukrainian national television.

In the Donetsk region, “Toretsk, Avtivka, Mariinka, Krasnogorivka were attacked overnight from Monday to Tuesday,” the governor said. Baghmoud “has been the target of artillery and airstrikes. Artillery was seen on the outskirts of Sloviansk.

According to Sergiy Gaïdaï, the governor of the neighboring region of Luhansk, which is almost entirely occupied by Russians, Ukrainian forces have repelled four Russian attacks in the past 24 hours, and “fighting continues in the fifth direction”.

“It has been almost a month since the enemy practically arrived at the border of our region, and to cross it they are sacrificing all reserves and burning villages in Donetsk and Lugansk regions,” he wrote on his Telegram account on Tuesday morning. .

“They need a referendum” on annexing the region to Russia, the Ukrainian official charged, “no matter how many people they kill or make homeless.”