Residents of the Serhiivka holiday village helped workers sort through the rubble of the nine-storey block of flats, part of which had been destroyed during the morning strike.
Walls and windows of a neighboring 14-storey apartment building were damaged by the blast wave. Nearby holiday camps were also affected.
“We came here to the site, assessed the situation together with aid workers and the local population, and together helped those who survived. And those who unfortunately died. We helped carry them away,” said Oleksandr Abramov, who lives nearby and rushed to the hospital. the scene when he heard the explosion.
Serhiy Bratchuk, spokesman for the Odessa regional government, said 21 people were killed, including a 12-year-old boy. Among the fatalities was an employee of the Children’s Rehabilitation Center set up by neighboring Ukraine, Moldova, at the resort.
The regional governor said the rockets had been fired from the direction of the Black Sea.
The Kremlin denied targeting civilians.
“I would like to remind you of the president’s words that the Russian armed forces do not work with civilian targets,” Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said.
LONG DISTANCE ATTACKS INTENSIVE
In his overnight video address on Friday, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy denounced the attack on the apartments and the coastal town as “deliberately, deliberately aimed at Russian terror and not at some mistake or an accidental missile attack”.
The attack on Serhiivka took place shortly after Russia withdrew its forces from Snake Island, a strategically important rock about 140 km (85 miles) southeast of Odessa that it captured on the first day of the war.
Chief of the Ukrainian General Staff Valeriy Zaluzhny accused Russia of not living up to its claims that it had left Snake Island as a “goodwill gesture”. On his Telegram channel, Zaluzhny said two Russian warplanes had taken off from a base in Crimea on Friday evening and bombed targets on the island.
He posted a video of what he said was the attack. Reuters could not confirm the video or the Russian action. There was no immediate Russian comment.
Earlier this week, Russia hit a crowded shopping center in central Ukraine, killing at least 19 people.
Kiev says Moscow has stepped up its long-range missile strikes, hitting civilian targets far from the front lines. Russia says it is targeting military sites.
Thousands of civilians have been killed since Russia invaded Ukraine on February 24. Russia calls the invasion a “special operation” to exterminate nationalists. Ukraine and its Western allies say it is an unprovoked war of aggression.
Since March, Russian troops have occupied the Zaporizhzhya nuclear power plant, the largest in Europe, in southern Ukraine. On Friday, the Ukrainian nuclear power plant said it had restored connection to surveillance systems there that had been cut off. Communications have been cut twice since March and the UN nuclear watchdog wants to inspect the factory.
FOOD SUPPLY
Russian forces had used Snake Island to control the northwestern Black Sea and impose a blockade on Ukraine, one of the world’s largest grain exporters.
Moscow denies being responsible for a food crisis, which it says is caused by Western sanctions that damage its own exports.
Russian President Vladimir Putin met with the President of Indonesia on Thursday and spoke by phone with the Prime Minister of India on Friday, promising both major food importers that Russia would remain a major grain supplier.
Ukraine has accused Russia of stealing grain from the areas Russian troops have occupied since the invasion.
It said a Russian-flagged cargo ship, the Zhibek Zholy, had left the Russian-occupied port of Berdyansk with a cargo of Ukrainian grain. Kiev requested Turkey to detain the ship, according to a Ukrainian official and document seen by Reuters.
A Russian-installed official said on Thursday that after a hiatus of several months, the first cargo ship had left the port of Berdyansk, but he did not name the Zhibek Zholy.
The Kremlin has previously denied stealing grain and did not respond to requests for comment on Friday.
NO GAS, ELECTRICITY, WATER
Russia’s ramped-up campaign of rocket attacks on Ukrainian cities has coincided with its troops gaining success on the battlefield to the east, aiming to force Ukraine to cede the provinces of Luhansk and Donetsk.
Moscow has been poised to take Luhansk since it took the city of Sievierodonetsk last week after some of the war’s heaviest fighting.
Ukraine’s last bastion in Luhansk is the city of Lysychansk across the Siverskyi Donets River, almost surrounded by Russian artillery barrages.
In Russian-occupied Sievierodonetsk, residents came out of bases to search the rubble of their city.
“Almost all city infrastructure has been destroyed. We have been living without gas, electricity and water since May,” Sergei Oleinik, 65, told Reuters.
More weapons were needed in both eastern and southern Ukraine, Zelenskiy said, when the Pentagon announced that the United States would send two NASAMS surface-to-air missile systems, four additional counter-artillery radars and ammunition as part of its latest weapons package.
“We’ve worked really hard to deliver these,” Zelenskiy said.