Two rockets fired by a TU-22 fighter destroy a nine-storey building and a recreation center on the Black Sea coast a few days after the massacre at a shopping center in Kremenchuk
At least 18 people have been killed and 31 injured in another Russian airstrike on civilian enclaves; in particular, a recreation center and a residential building in the Bilhorod-Dnistrovsky district, in Odessa. Among the victims are four children, one of whom has died, and a pregnant woman who was rescued alive from the rubble. The rescue teams continue their work in search of survivors after they manage to find seven people alive among the ruins.
The bombing took place this morning in the midst of the offensive by Russian aviation and artillery at various points in southeastern Ukraine. According to the General Staff’s first estimates, it was a Tu-22 aircraft that launched the “powerful and heavy” missiles that caused the catastrophe. This aircraft equips the inconspicuous X-22 missiles, characterized by their high explosive capacity and very high precision, refined after the first models registered reliability problems decades ago. One of them directly hit a nine-storey building, while the second fell on a leisure center. Most of the fatalities, fourteen, died in the apartment building. Several witnesses have indicated that one of the entrances to the building has “completely collapsed” and the screams of survivors could be heard among the ruins, according to local press.
The confusion continues in the area. Firefighters are not ruling out the discovery of more bodies as they inspect the remains of the building, though no missing persons have been reported so far. Neighborhood testimonies show that the explosion shook all floors and that the facade literally collapsed. Odessa is the main port on the Black Sea, and the region has been in the crosshairs of Russian artillery since the invasion began, though the fires have intensified in the last two months as Moscow sought to cut off Ukraine’s main outlet to the sea. European Council President Charles Michel was surprised by shells in this strategic port on 9 May during a visit to show the EU’s support for the Ukrainians.
This latest bombing 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 two-storey leisure center swept away by the explosion could be part of the facilities of a spa.
The outrage and alarm are palpable in digital media and social networks. Repeated bombing of civilian targets seems to have become a regular part of the invasion. The embers of the fire that devoured a shopping center in Kremenchuk last Monday, June 28 after being hit by a rocket, have not yet been extinguished. About 20 people were killed in the explosion and 40 were missing, for whom all hopes of detection have been lost. According to Moscow, the offensive in Kremenchuk targeted an ammunition warehouse that, when it emptied, attacked an abandoned shopping center. The suspicion that the establishment was closed is denied by both the number of deaths and the images of the disaster.
The offensive this morning was in reality part of a hail of fire. Ukrainian authorities have reported other rocket attacks in Kharkov and Mykolaiv, as well as mortar fire in the Chernigov region, although there were no casualties in any of these cases. The General Staff draws attention to the coincidence of this artillery wave just at the end 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 demonstrate that it does not intend to block the grain flow through the Black Sea. On the other hand, British intelligence this morning joined Kiev’s position, according to which the withdrawal would be due to the continued intimidation of Ukrainian troops against the Russian garrison. President Volodymyr Zelensky has said in his usual morning speech that the Snake Island invaders’ march “significantly changes the situation” of the confrontation experienced in the Black Sea, as it “limits the actions of the occupiers”. British Prime Minister Boris Johnson has also pointed to the value of this withdrawal, which he sees as an achievement of Ukrainian troops (as happened previously with “the withdrawal from Kiev and Kharkov”) and substantiates his claim that the war “will end” according to the conditions set by Kiev and not by Moscow.
Source: La Verdad
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