Feb 13 (Reuters) – Three Ukrainian brothers, including an 8-year-old child, were killed near the eastern frontline and a Russian drone strike killed one person and wounded six others at a Ukrainian Black Sea port near Odessa, Ukrainian officials said on Friday.
The brothers’ mother and grandmother, two of whom are 19, were injured in the attack on Thursday night, the local prosecutor of the Donetsk region said on Friday.
These ports are Ukraine’s vital maritime export arteries, vital to the survival of its foreign trade and wartime economy. Moscow has stepped up attacks on Russian and Ukrainian energy infrastructure, while Kiev has targeted Russian oil facilities in a stalled U.S.-led effort to end the war.
“Russia has launched massive attacks on ports and railway infrastructure,” Deputy Prime Minister Oleksiy Kuleba wrote on Telegram.
Infrastructure belonging to a business was damaged as well as fertilizer warehouses and vehicles, including trucks, Kuleba said, adding that the attack sparked a fire.
Ukraine’s Seaports Authority did not reveal the name of the port, saying only that it was one of three ports around Odessa that continued to operate despite damage to infrastructure.
The Ukrainian Air Force said Russia launched a total of 154 drones and a ballistic missile into Ukraine overnight. Air defense systems shot down or destroyed 111 drones, the report said.
Odessa region governor Oleh Kiper said the region’s energy, industrial and residential infrastructure had also been targeted, after reports that the attack caused “serious” damage to electricity, heating and water supplies.
DTEK, a large private energy company in Ukraine, said the damage to the city’s energy infrastructure was “extremely serious” and repair work will take a long time. It did not say which facility was hit.
Kuleba said rail infrastructure in the southeastern region of Dnipropetrovsk had also come under attack in the past 24 hours.
(Reporting by Anna Pluchnica; Editing by Jamie Freed, Stephen Coates, Philippa Fletcher)
