Missile barrage batters Odesa, heavily damaging cathedral

KYIV – Russia unleashed a missile barrage early Sunday on Ukraine’s southern port city of Odesa, leaving one person dead and heavily damaging the cathedral in the historic city center.

Moscow has been bombarding Odesa and its surroundings with different types of missiles for nearly a week after Russia withdrew from the Black Sea Grain Initiative, the U.N.-brokered deal to export Ukrainian grain.

The attack on Odesa Sunday came hours before Russian President Vladimir Putin was due to meet with Belarussian leader Alexander Lukashenko in St. Petersburg.

Russian forces attacked the Odesa region with 19 missiles, including cruise, anti-ship and ballistic missiles, in Sunday’s barrage. Ukrainian air defense managed to shoot down nine of them, the country’s air forces said in a statement.

More than 19 people were wounded and one person was killed in the attack. Odesa’s historical city center, a UNESCO world heritage site, was badly damaged by the attack. Six residential buildings were destroyed. City’s oldest and biggest Transfiguration Orthodox Cathedral was heavily damaged by a Russian missile, local authorities said.

“Missiles against peaceful cities, against residential buildings, a cathedral … There can be no excuse for Russian evil,” Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said in a statement. “As always, this evil will lose. And there will definitely be a retaliation to Russian terrorists for Odesa. They will feel this retaliation,” he added.

Ukraine can’t shoot down the Oniks anti-ship missiles that Russia is firing at Odesa, partly because those weapons fly at a high speed of more than 4,000 kilometers an hour, Yuriy Ignat, spokesman of Ukraine’s air force. told Radio Liberty.

“Russians launch them from the coastal complex “Bastion” from the territory of the occupied Crimea,” Ignat said. “Initially, they fly at a speed of more than 3,000 km/h, and during the approach to the target, they descend to 10-15 meters. That way, it’s hard to shoot down something that flies very low. It is even difficult to detect those missiles,” Ignat added.

According to Ignat, only Patriot air defense systems could shoot down those types of missiles. Ukraine currently has only two of that type of U.S.-made air defense system.

The meeting between Putin and Lukashenko set for later Sunday comes on the heels of Putin’s warning that an attack on Belarus would be an attack on Russia. The warning appeared to be in response to a Polish decision to shift military units to the east of the country, closer to the Belarusian border, following the Russian ally’s hosting of Wagner mercenary fighters.

Varg Folkman contributed to this report.