Russian Missiles Hit Odesa For Third Night In a Row, Killing One

A barrage of Russian missiles struck Odesa for the third night in a row early Thursday, killing a security guard and causing widespread damage to the Black Sea port city, the local governor said. 

A Russian military spokesman said the missiles had destroyed a facility used to make Ukraine's robotic sea drones, three days after unmanned boat rammed explosives into the Kerch Bridge in Russian-occupied Crimea.

Russia has stepped up its attacks on Ukrainian ports and food storage facilities since it refused earlier this week to renew a critical shipping agreement that allowed Ukrainian grain to reach world markets. 

Odesa Gov. Oleh Kiper said air defenses downed 12 Iranian-made Shahed attack drones and two Kalibr missiles during the attack.

“Unfortunately,” he said “it was not possible to destroy all the missiles.” The city was hit by Russian X-22 Onyx missiles, “which are extremely difficult to destroy.”

“Having attacked the ports of the grain agreement, causing damage to the port infrastructure, the terrorists also hit civilian infrastructure objects that are not connected to the ports in any way,” Kiper said on Telegram.

“The administrative building in the center of Odesa was destroyed, where several buildings, including residential ones, were damaged by the blast wave.”

A warehouse was also struck and burned, and eight people were injured with shrapnel wounds and smoke inhalation. 

Kiper said one body – that of a security guard – was pulled from the rubble at one of the strike zones. 

Russia said the blasts were continuing revenge for a Ukrainian maritime drone attack that severely damaged the Kerch Bridge connecting occupied Crimea with the Russian mainland.

"Tonight, the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation continued delivering retaliatory strikes with high-precision sea and air-based weapons against production shops and storage sites for unmanned boats in the city of Odesa and Ilyichevsk, Odesa region," Russian Defense Ministry spokesman Igor Konashenkov told reporters Thursday.

"In addition, in the area of ​​​​the city of Nikolaev, fuel infrastructure facilities and ammunition depots of the Armed Forces of Ukraine were destroyed," he said.

On Wednesday, officials said that 60,000 tons of grain had been destroyed by a Russian missile at a grain depot south of Odesa. 

“Such actions will create a large, huge food crisis in the world,” Josep Borrell, the European Union’s foreign policy chief, said Wednesday in Brussels. “This grain is not simply stuck in warehouses but destroyed. This means that there will be a shortage of food, a shortage of grain in the world." 

A Russian strike against the port city and transportation hub of Mykolaiv around 3AM local time injured 19 people, including five children, Gov. Vitalii Kim said on Telegram.

A three-story building was destroyed. Firefighters worked four hours to put down a large fire resulting from the blast.