A building burns in central Odessa following a Russian missile strike on the southwestern port city that killed five people and injured 31. Photo by Igor Tkachenko/EPA-EFE
April 30 (UPI) — Russian missile, artillery and laser-guided bomb strikes across a wide swathe of Ukraine from Sumy in the northeast to Odessa in the southwest killed seven people and injured at least 36, authorities said.
The largest loss of life was in Odessa where the casualty toll from a missile strike rose to five Tuesday after a 63-year-old man died of his injuries in a hospital, regional governor Oleh Kiper said on social media.
At least 31 people were injured in the attack.
Kiper said 23 victims were remained in the hospital four of whom are in an “extremely serious” condition, including a four-year-old girl, and eight people are in serious condition.
“Our doctors try to do everything possible,” he said.
Fatalities were also reported in Kherson and Donetsk with 10 provinces targeted in all including Kharkiv, Zaporizhzhia, Chernihiv, Mykolaiv, Luhansk and Dnipropetrovsk.
A strike on the village of Krasnohorivka in Pokrovsk district, 42 miles northwest of Donetsk, killed one person and injured two others, Governor Vadim Filashkin said in a social media post.
Damage to residential buildings and social and industrial facilities was sustained from bombardment by artillery and precision-guided bombs in a number of other villages and in the city of Bakhmut in the north of the province.
In the south, Kherson province came under heavy bombardment with more than a dozen settlements targeted including the capital Kherson where one person was killed and one person was injured, according to the region’s military administration.
At least 10 houses, a critical infrastructure facility, an administration building and a cultural institution were damaged in the attacks.
Russian forces also hit 18 settlements across the Kharkiv region including Kharkiv, Ukraine’s second-largest city, which was targeted with KAB-laser-guided bombs that resulted in a 42-year-old man being badly injured, Governor Oleh Syniehubov reported on social media.
The injured man was hospitalized in a serious condition.
A 67-year-old man in Kupiansk-Vuzlovyi, 79 miles southeast of Kharkiv, was injured in a KAB laser-guided bomb strike that hit the village just before midnight.
President Volodymyr Zelensky said the attacks were preventable, using them to illustrate the difference more air defense systems, including Patriot missiles he has been calling on Western allies to supply, would make.
“Russia’s regular missile attacks, as well as the occupier’s efforts to destroy as many Ukrainian positions as possible, can all be stopped,” he wrote on X.
“Russia’s offensive plans can be thwarted. For this, Ukrainian strength must be backed up by sufficient support from partners: ‘Patriots’ that need to be in Ukraine now, the 155-mm caliber that must sound as confident as possible on the frontlines, and weapons with sufficient range to destroy Russian logistics.”
On Friday, the U.S. Defense Department unveiled a $6 billion Ukraine military assistance package that included Patriot missiles and other munitions and support systems.