Russian Strike Rocks Ukraine’s Odesa After Rare Drone Attack On St. Petersburg 

Russia’s military may have its sights set on Ukraine’s key southern port city of Odesa next. On Saturday a wave of drone and artillery strikes reportedly killed at least 11 people.

According to Ukraine government officials, “Eight were confirmed dead, including a child and a baby, after an overnight drone strike on the southern port city of Odesa.” Two more bodies were said to have been found on Sunday. A direct drone strike appears to have destroyed a residential apartment block.

Port city of Odesa, via UNESCO

Zelensky in the attack aftermath said that ongoing aerial strikes like these are why Kiev urgently needs additional batteries of advanced anti-air defense systems.

“Russia continues to hit civilians,” Zelensky said in a statement on social media. “We need more air defenses from our partners. We need to strengthen the Ukrainian air shield to add more protection for our people from Russian terror. More air-defense systems and more missiles for air-defense systems save lives,” he said.

The country’s Interior Minister Igor Klymenko described that in Odesa, “a nine-story building was destroyed as a result of an attack by Russian terrorists” – as stated on Telegram. There have been local reports that debris from an Iranian-made drone was recovered.

At the same time, Ukraine’s cross-border attacks on Russian territory have continued to intensify. On Saturday there was a rare Ukrainian drone attack that reached all the way to St. Petersburg, reportedly striking a residential building in the Krasnogvardeisky district.

Further, Russia’s defense ministry said that overnight a large wave of 38 drones were intercepted over the Crimean peninsula. According to fresh reporting Sunday, some of the drones may have gotten through:

In Russian-occupied Crimea, loud explosions were heard near an oil depot in the early hours of Sunday, according to a local pro-Kyiv Telegram news channel, while Kremlin-installed officials in the territory said that a nearby stretch of highway was closed to traffic for about eight hours.

Videos shared with pro-Ukrainian channel Crimean Wind showed explosions lighting up the night sky, followed by loud booms. The channel said they were taken by local residents near Feodosia — a coastal town in northeastern Crimea. It was not immediately possible to verify the circumstances in which the videos were shot.

Below: severely damaged apartment block in Odesa struck by suicide drone…

#Watch | Russian drone crashed into a residential building in Odesa, destroying several apartments, and leaving several people trapped in the rubble.#russia pic.twitter.com/9cFzgVSgZX

— DD News (@DDNewslive) March 3, 2024

The last several months have witnessed repeat cross-border attacks on Russian oil and energy infrastructure especially. But Russian civilians have also been killed and injured as a result of drone and missile attacks on the center of Belgorod city. 

Moscow has meanwhile condemned Western powers in addition to Kiev, given Kremlin officials have charged that Western-supplied weapons have been used in these cross-border attacks.