KYIV, Ukraine: Russia targeted Ukraine’s Black Sea regions of Odesa and Mykolaiv with airstrikes Tuesday, hitting private buildings and port infrastructure along the country’s southern coast, the Ukrainian military said.
The Kremlin’s forces used air-launched missiles in the attack, Ukraine’s Operational Command South said in a Facebook post.
In the Odesa region, a number of private buildings in coastal villages were hit and caught fire, the report said. In the Mykolaiv region, port infrastructure was targeted despite the agreements Moscow and Kyiv signed last week that was intended to allow grain grain shipments to resume from Ukraine’s Black Sea ports.
Hours after the strikes, a Moscow-installed official in southern Ukraine said the Odesa and Mykolaiv regions would soon be “liberated” by Russian forces, just like the already occupied Kherson region further east.
“The Kherson region and the city of Kherson have been liberated forever,” the region’s Russia-appointed official, Kirill Stremousov, was quoted as saying by Russian state news agency RIA Novosti.
Meanwhile, Russia’s top diplomat repeated his insistence that Moscow was ready to hold talks with Ukraine on ending the war, though he once again claimed that Kyiv’s Western allies oppose a deal.
“We never refused to have talks, because everybody knows that any hostilities end at the negotiating table,” Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said Tuesday during a trip to Uganda.
He said negotiations have gone no further since a meeting between the two sides in Istanbul at the end of March.
While Ukrainian officials have spoken of a possible counteroffensive in the south, the British Defense Ministry said Tuesday there was no indication a Ukrainian warship and a stockpile of anti-ship missiles were at Odesa’s port, as Moscow claimed when it struck the site over the weekend.
The British ministry said Russia sees Ukraine’s use of anti-ship missiles as “a key threat” that is limiting its Black Sea Fleet.
“This has significantly undermined the overall invasion plan, as Russia cannot realistically attempt an amphibious assault to seize Odesa,” the military said. “Russia will continue to prioritize efforts to degrade and destroy Ukraine’s anti-ship capability.”