A Ukrainian official said a Russian missile attack early Wednesday killed three people and wounded three others in the port of Odessa, a city in southern Ukraine that has been a regular target of Russian missiles and drones trying to destroy its infrastructure. port.
The attack came days after a Russian airstrike Monday night killed five people and wounded about 30 more, Ukrainian officials said.
Videos and photographs of Monday’s attack showed lifeless and bloodied bodies of civilians lying on a boardwalk not known to be near any strategic sites such as military buildings or grain warehouses.
Ukrainian authorities on Tuesday accused Russia of using cluster munitions — a controversial and widely banned weapon that can often cause indiscriminate harm to civilians — in that attack.
The early Wednesday attack also damaged civilian infrastructure in Odessa, Oleh Kiper, head of the military administration in the region, said on the Telegram messaging app.
Andriy Kostin, Ukraine’s prosecutor general, said in a statement that Russia had fired an Iskander ballistic missile with a cluster warhead in Monday’s attack. “Investigators have reason to believe that the decision to use such a weapon was made by Russian military officers deliberately to kill as many Ukrainian civilians as possible,” Kostin said.
His claim could not be independently verified. The statement included a video of the attack, which showed that the assault targeted a port area with several nearby sports facilities. The video also shows a constellation of about 30 explosions in rapid succession in the port neighborhood. The New York Times verified the authenticity of the video but not the nature of the weapon used.
Minutes before the explosions, Ukraine sent a notice through a Telegram channel about the launch of a missile from Crimea bound for Odessa.
Konrad Muzyka, a military analyst at Rochan Consulting in Poland, said the explosions appeared to be the result of a cluster munition. Bridget Brink, US ambassador to Ukraine, he wrote on social media site that Russia had used cluster munitions in that attack, adding: “The brutal and relentless nature of Russia’s war cannot be underestimated, as these attacks on civilians continue every day.”
The Kremlin did not comment on the attacks in Odessa. U.S. officials said they were aware of Monday’s attack and Ukrainian claims of cluster munitions, but could not confirm the use of the munitions.
Because of the danger that cluster munitions pose to civilians, more than 100 countries signed a treaty known as the Convention on Cluster Munitions in 2008, promising not to manufacture, use, transfer or stockpile them. The United States, Russia and Ukraine are not parties to the treaty.
Both Russia and Ukraine have used cluster munitions (a type of weapon comprising rockets, bombs, mortars, artillery shells and missiles that open in the air and disperse smaller submunitions, such as explosive bombs, over hundreds of square feet) in war.
Originally designed before the advent of guided weapons, they are typically inaccurate weapons designed to attack targets such as air defense sites, armored vehicles, and dismounted troops in a general area, and have often been used on the front lines.
Bomb disposal experts and human rights groups have said such mini-bombs, which are mass-produced and cheap, generally have a 20 percent failure rate, often leaving behind dangerous debris that can explode later if mishandled. . Because they are small, these remains can go unnoticed among debris or vegetation and weigh so little that children can pick them up without realizing the danger.
If confirmed, its use in Monday’s attack could mark an escalation in Russia’s tactics aimed at making life miserable for Ukrainian civilians, including bombing power plants to cut off electricity to major cities. Moscow has repeatedly attacked urban centers in recent weeks, sometimes using weapons normally reserved for combat zones.
The area targeted by Monday’s attack is popular with locals, who often walk there. A nearby Gothic-style building known locally as “Harry Potter Castle,” which houses a private law academy, was engulfed in flames after the attack.
“The Russians fired a ballistic missile with a cluster munition at one of the most popular places among Odessa residents and visitors, where people walked their children, dogs and played sports,” Kiper said on social media.
Kiper said a dog also died in the attack. Unconfirmed photos Images taken after the attack showed a woman in sports clothing kneeling next to a bloody white dog, as well as a woman lying at the foot of a bench next to a sidewalk with impact marks.
Kostin, the attorney general, said fragments of the weapon had been found within a radius of 1.5 kilometers, or about a mile, from the impact site.
The United States agreed last year to send the Ukrainian military artillery shells with 155-millimeter cluster munitions to help it press ahead with its summer counteroffensive. The decision drew criticism from human rights organizations who pointed out the indiscriminate harm that weapons can cause to civilians.
Ukrainian officials and military experts say Russia’s stepped-up attacks on big cities in recent weeks are aimed at intimidating residents and creating panic.
A main target has been Kharkiv, Ukraine’s second-largest city, just 40 kilometers from the Russian border. Since March, Russia has been striking it for the first time with one of the deadliest weapons in its arsenal: powerful guided weapons known as glide bombs, which are dropped from fighter jets and deliver hundreds of pounds of explosives in a single explosion. Bombs are difficult to shoot down with air defense systems, leaving people essentially defenseless.
On Tuesday, Russia attacked Kharkiv again with three glide bombs, according to a statement from the Kharkiv regional prosecutor’s office. The attack killed at least one person and injured at least eight others, prosecutors said.
Dr. Oleksandr Volkov, a doctor with the International Rescue Committee, a humanitarian organization based in Kharkiv, said in an email statement that the recent series of attacks has made living conditions in the city “increasingly uncomfortable.” , which marks a significant deterioration compared to recently.” six months ago.”
Eric Schmitt contributed reporting from Washington, D.C.