Latest Russian strike on Odesa leaves 1 dead, many hurt and a cathedral badly damaged
CBC
Russia struck the Ukrainian Black Sea city of Odesa again on Sunday, local officials said, keeping up a barrage of attacks that have damaged critical port infrastructure in southern Ukraine in the past week. At least one person was killed and 22 others wounded in the attack in the early hours.
Regional Gov. Oleh Kiper said that four children were among those wounded in the blasts, which severely damaged the historic Transfiguration Cathedral, a landmark Orthodox cathedral in the city.
Russia has been launching persistent attacks on Odesa, a key hub for exporting grain, since Moscow cancelled a landmark grain deal on Monday amid Kyiv's grinding efforts to retake its occupied territories.
Kiper noted that six residential buildings, including apartment buildings, were destroyed by the strikes.
In one such case in downtown Odesa, some people became trapped in their apartments as a result of the damage caused by the attack, which left rubble strewn in the street that partly blocked the road, and damage to power lines.
Svitlana Molcharova, 85, was rescued by emergency service workers. But after she received medical aid, she refused to leave her destroyed apartment.
"I will stay here," she said to the emergency service worker who advised her to leave.
"I woke up when the ceiling started to fall on me. I rushed into the corridor," said Ivan Kovalenko, 19, another resident of the building. He came to Odesa after fleeing the city of Mykolaiv in search of a safer place to live when his house was destroyed.
"That's how I lost my home in Mykolaiv, and here, I lost my rented apartment."
In his home, the ceiling partially collapsed, the balcony came off the side of the building and all of the windows were blown out.
The Transfiguration Cathedral, one of the most important and largest Orthodox cathedrals in Odesa, was severely damaged. Local officials said that the icon of the patroness of the city had been retrieved from under the rubble.
"The destruction is enormous, half of the cathedral is now roofless," Archdeacon Andrii Palchuk said. Cathedral workers brought documents and valuable items out of the building, whose floor was inundated with water used by firefighters to extinguish the fire.
Palchuk said the damage was caused by a direct hit from a Russian missile that penetrated the building down to the basement and caused significant damage. Two people who were inside at the time of the strike were wounded.
"But with God's help, we will restore it," he said, bursting into tears.
