A Russian missile killed a 16-year-old boy in Odesa. Russian forces struck civilian infrastructure in Odesa Oblast on the evening of 18 July, wounding at least seven other residents, the Odesa Oblast Prosecutor’s Office said.
Prosecutors opened a war crimes investigation under Part 2 of Article 438 of Ukraine’s Criminal Code.
The evening attack damaged two private houses, buildings at a sports-and-entertainment complex, and eight cars, according to prosecutors.
Russia hit recreation park with families
Beyond the 16-year-old killed, the wounded included a two-year-old child, four women aged 22 to 28, and two men aged 27 and 40, all hospitalized.
Oblast administration head Oleh Kiper reported that a missile hit a recreation park, destroying fishermen’s houses, and that people might still be under the rubble as a search-and-rescue operation continued. The casualty figures were still being clarified late on 18 July.
Eyewitnesses posted video of people digging through sand and debris by hand, apparently in the moments right after the missile struck, searching for anyone trapped.
Toll was still being counted late on 18 July
The information from the scene shifted through the evening, as it typically does in the hours after a strike.
Kiper initially reported two people killed and four wounded, including a child, at the recreation park, with people possibly still trapped under the rubble. He said a second location in another settlement saw a residential building and two cars damaged, with one person hurt.
The Security Service of Ukraine’s Odesa directorate is conducting the pre-trial investigation and documenting the strikes as war crimes.
Odesa has been under sustained fire for over week
The 18 July strike is the latest in a campaign that has hammered Odesa and its ports throughout July. From 11 to 15 July, Russian strikes hit three Greater Odesa ports and the merchant ships anchored there, cutting the region’s grain-export capacity by roughly a third, per Reuters.
The civilian toll has run alongside the economic one. On 16 July, a Russian strike on Odesa killed Olena Arkhipova, a Red Cross first-aid instructor and single mother of three, as she hurried to shelter with her children; the children survived.
Read also
About the Author
