Zelensky vows Ukrainian victory as death toll in Odesa strike hits 12

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky has called for the world to help Kyiv defeat “Russian evil” as the death toll from a Russian drone strike on Odesa rose to 12, including five children.
A Russian drone hit an apartment block in the southern port city early on Saturday morning, partially destroying several floors and leaving more than a dozen people under the rubble.
The attack killed five children, including two babies less than a year old, according to statements by Zelensky and the regional governor.
“Mark, who was not even three years old, Yelyzaveta, eight months old, and Timofey, four months old,” Zelensky said, naming the youngest victims of the strike in a post on Telegram. “Ukrainian children are Russia’s military targets.”
Rescuers pulled bodies from the rubble yesterday evening, more than 36 hours after the strike.
Zelensky had pleaded on Saturday with Kyiv’s Western allies to supply more air defence systems as Russia continues to pound Ukraine with drones, missiles and artillery fire in the war’s third year.
Kyiv is currently on the back foot with Russia having made recent front-line battlefield gains.
Zelensky said 215 emergency responders had taken part in the search and rescue operation in Odesa that ended yesterday evening.
He said the attack showed the importance of supporting Ukraine, as delays to a crucial $60bn aid package from the United States have left Kyiv facing ammunition shortages.
“We must win this war,” he said yesterday. “Every Russian loss at the front is our country’s response to Russian terror. The world must respond to every manifestation of Russian evil and repel Russia’s actions.”
There was no comment on the attack in Moscow, which denies targeting civilians despite excessive evidence of Russian strikes on residential areas and the United Nations having verified at least 10,000 civilian deaths since Russia invaded in February 2022.
Ukraine’s emergency services said they had found the bodies of families huddled together as they sifted through the rubble.
“A mother tried to cover her eight-month-old baby with her body. They were found in a tight embrace,” the agency said on Telegram.
Odesa Governor Oleg Kiper said the bodies of a brother and sister, aged 10 and eight, were also found together in the debris.
Ukraine’s interior ministry separately reported one death and three people wounded in the southern Kherson region, while police said an airstrike on a residential quarter of Kurakhove, a town in the eastern Donetsk region, injured 16.
Russian military bloggers also reported an attempted massive Ukrainian drone attack on the annexed peninsula of Crimea overnight.
Moscow said it shot down 38 Ukrainian drones, while the Rybar Telegram channel, close to Russia’s armed forces, said one hit a pipeline at an oil depot that was the presumed target of the attack.
Kyiv has hit several Russian oil facilities in recent months in what it has called fair retribution for Moscow’s attacks on Ukraine’s power grid.
A senior Ukrainian commander also accused Russian forces of dropping explosives containing an unspecified chemical substance over the battlefield, and said that the situation on the front lines was “complicated, but under control”.