Russia fires hypersonic missiles at Odesa after holiday pomp

Ukraine’s vital Black Sea port of Odesa came under repeated missile attack Monday night, including from some hypersonic missiles

Ukraine's vital Black Sea port of Odesa came under repeated missile attack, including from some hypersonic missiles, after Russia marked its biggest patriotic holiday without giving new information about the war. Also, a Ukrainian official said the bodies of 44 civilians were found in the rubble of a building destroyed by Russia in March.

The civilians were inside a five-story building that collapsed in Izyum in the Kharkiv region, said Oleh Synehubov, the head of Kharkiv’s regional administration.

“This is another horrible war crime of the Russian occupiers against the civilian population!” he said in a social media message announcing the deaths.

Izyum is an eastern Ukrainian city that Russia has been holding as a key front-line node. Synehubov did not say specifically where the building was.

Earlier, the Ukrainian military said Russian forces fired seven missiles from the air at Odesa, hitting a shopping center and a warehouse. One person was killed and five were wounded, the military said.

As part of the barrage, a Russian supersonic bomber fired three hypersonic missiles, according to the Center for Defense Strategies, a Ukrainian think tank tracking the war. The center identified the weapons used as Kinzhal, or “Dagger,” hypersonic air-to-surface missiles.

The Kinzhal can fly at five times the speed of sound and has a range of 2,000 kilometers (1,240 miles). Using advanced guided missiles allows Russia to fire from aircraft at a distance without being in Ukrainian air space and exposed to potential anti-aircraft fire.