At least three people were killed and 15 others were wounded in Russian drone attacks on the southern Ukrainian port city of Odessa on Monday morning, according to local officials.
A 30-year-old woman and her 2-year-old daughter, as well as a 53-year-old woman were among those killed after a drone strike on a multi-storey residential building.
Regional military governor Oleh Kipar said, “Law enforcement agencies are documenting the latest war crimes of the attacking state against the civilian population.”
“Residential buildings, critical infrastructure and administrative buildings were affected,” he said. “Rescue operations ongoing; there may still be people under the debris.”
According to the Ukrainian Air Defense Forces, the latest Russian airstrike involved 141 drones, of which 114 were intercepted.
Separate attacks in Ukraine’s northern Chernihiv region left about 340,000 people without power, officials said.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said Monday that the country’s partners “need to work together to strengthen air defense as the interception rate of drones and missiles continues to increase.”
US-led peace efforts are currently stalled, partly due to the war in the Middle East, with Zelensky saying: “Russia has no intention of stopping its invasion of Ukraine”, now in its fifth year.
Ukraine aims to export Russian oil
Meanwhile, Ukraine has continued to attack Russian oil export facilities as it seeks to prevent Moscow from taking advantage of rising demand for Russian oil given the decline in supplies from the Middle East as a result of the ongoing US-Israeli war against Iran.
Over the Easter weekend, there were reports of Ukrainian drone attacks on oil facilities in Primorsk in Russia’s northwestern Leningrad region, Kstovo near the city of Nizhny Novgorod, about 450 kilometers (280 miles) east of Moscow, and the Black Sea port of Novorossiysk, where Ukrainian armed forces claimed to have targeted a Russian warship on Monday.
At least one person was reported killed in the Belgorod region on the border with Ukraine on Sunday evening, while local officials also reported Ukrainian attacks on Sevastopol in Russian-held Crimea and a cargo ship carrying wheat in the Sea of Azov.
More than 150 Ukrainian drones were intercepted over a three-hour span Sunday night, according to the Russian military, but officials said about half a million Russian homes were left temporarily without power.
According to the Washington-based Institute for the Study of War (ISW), Russian military bloggers (“milbloggers”) have said that damage to oil exports and energy infrastructure would be “costly and time-consuming to repair”.
ISW added: “Russian milbloggers have already complained about Russia’s inability to repair facilities damaged by parts sanctions and Russian air defense failures.”
Ukrainian President in Syria
Speaking in Damascus, Syria, on Sunday, where he met with interim Syrian President Ahmed al-Sharaa, President Zelensky warned that Russia is benefiting economically from the Iran war, particularly due to the partial easing of US sanctions on Russian oil.
“This provides additional funding to Russia,” he said, while also reiterating the demand to maintain supplies of air defense weapons to Ukraine.
“We have to recognize that we are not a priority today,” Zelensky said. “I’ve been scared for a long time [in Iran] Will support us less.”
Ukrainian commander claims frontline successes
Meanwhile, on the front lines in eastern Ukraine, Ukrainian Commander-in-Chief Oleksandr Syrsky claimed on Monday that his forces had liberated 480 square kilometers (about 300 square miles) of territory since late January.
Nevertheless, he wrote on the Telegram messaging platform, Russian troops are continuing their efforts to establish a buffer zone in the Dnipropetrovsk region, while ISW said Ukrainian counter-attacks were disrupting Russian efforts near Pokrovsk in the Donetsk region.
Edited by: Natalie Muller