KYIV: Russia’s latest missile strike on Odesa killed two, injured many, and seriously damaged a UNESCO-listed Orthodox cathedral on Sunday, drawing a pledge of retaliation from Ukraine’s leader.
The attack on the port city, which Russia has targeted since quitting the Black Sea grain agreement, came just hours before Russian President Vladimir Putin met his Belarus counterpart for negotiations.
Ukrainian leader Volodymyr Zelensky vowed to strike back at Russia for the deadly strike, which involved nineteen missiles and also injured 22 people, AFP reported.
Zelensky said that missiles were against peaceful cities, residential buildings, and a cathedral. There would definitely be retaliation against Russian attacks on Odesa.
Kyiv also said the Orthodox Savior and Transfiguration Cathedral in the historic city center was destroyed, describing it as a war crime that would never be forgotten and forgiven.
The cathedral’s archdeacon Andriy Palchuk said that both people in the cathedral at the time of the strike survived.
Russia said it had hit all its intended targets in the city strike, claiming the places were being used to prepare “terrorist acts” against it.
Odesa Under Russian Attacks
Odesa has been hit several times since the beginning of the war, and in January, the UN cultural agency UNESCO designated the city’s center as a World Heritage in Danger site.
Strikes have increased since Moscow said it was pulling out of a key agreement that allowed the safe transit of Ukrainian grain — effectively ending the deal inked in July last year between Moscow, Kyiv, Istanbul, and the UN.
Moscow then announced that it would consider any vessels going to Ukrainian grain ports on the Black Sea as military targets.
Kyiv has accused Moscow of targeting grain supplies and infrastructure crucial for any resumption of Ukrainian grain exports.
On Sunday, Russian President Putin met with Alexander Lukashenko for the first time since the Belarus leader helped broker an agreement to end a mutiny by Wagner fighters inside Russia in June.
Putin told him that an ongoing counteroffensive by Ukrainian troops to push back his country’s force had “failed”.
