The Russian missile strike on an apartment building on the outskirts of Odessa, which resulted in killing at least 21 people and wounding dozens more, was not an accident but a targeted attack, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zhelensky said during his address last night.
He spoke of a terrorist act and added that the missile used was designed to hit aircraft carriers and other warships. Russiahas, Zelensky said, has fired more than 3,000 missiles into Ukraine since the war began on February 24, not counting artillery shells or other weapons.
He added that "unfortunately, the death toll is rising."
"It was a simple apartment building with about 160 people, ordinary people, civilians, living inside," he said in the statement. No weapons or military equipment were stored in the building, "as Russian propagandists and officials always tell us about such attacks," he noted.
In addition, 12 Russian missiles hit the town of Mikolaiv "in one night and one morning," the Ukrainian president said, expressing his condolences to the families and friends of the victims.
"This atrocity underlines how right our partners were when they decided to support Ukraine," Zelensky said, adding that no state should be left alone "in the face of such evil."
For his part, Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmitry Kuleba accused Russia of waging war against civilians and called on the country's partners via Twitter to "give us modern missile defense systems as soon as possible" to "help us save lives and put an end to this war."
Meanwhile, Russian Defense Minister spokesman Igor Konashenkov said that a refinery in the city of Lyshchansk, the focus of fierce hostilities in recent days, has fallen into the hands of Russian troops and pro-Russian separatists. The Ukrainian side denied this.
Lyshchansk is the Ukrainian troops' last stronghold in the Lugansk region, in the Donbass basin, as eastern Ukraine is known, which Moscow is attempting to bring under its control in its entirety.
New Pentagon aid
The Pentagon tonight announced new military aid to Ukraine, totaling $820 million, including, among other things, missiles, shells and anti-aircraft radars.
According to the announcement, the US is sending Ukraine two NASAMS surface-to-air missile systems, another four radars, missiles for the US HIMARS multiple launchers, and 150,000 155mm rockets for artillery.
This new aid package was announced by US President Joe Biden on Thursday, following the NATO summit in Madrid, which focused on Russia's invasion of Ukraine.
The NASAMS anti-aircraft systems can launch short- and medium-range surface-to-air missiles. They are manufactured by the US-based Raytheon and the Norwegian Kongsberg Group.
With this new deployment from existing US military stocks, the US has provided $6.9 billion in military aid to Ukraine since the start of the war on February 24.
Source: KYPE
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