On Friday, Russia launched missiles near Ukraine’s Black Sea city of Odesa, hitting an apartment complex and a resort and killing at least 18 people, only hours after Russian troops were forced from Snake Island.
Images published by Ukrainian emergency services showed firemen sifting the rubble of a collapsed apartment complex for survivors.
Thousands of civilians have been killed since Russia invaded Ukraine on February 24 in an unprovoked act of aggression, according to Ukraine. Russia disputes that civilians were targeted as part of a ‘special operation’ to weed out nationalists.
Russia had evacuated its troops off Snake Island, a lonely but strategically vital island that it took on the first day of the war and has used to control the northeastern Black Sea, where it has blockaded Odesa and other ports.
President Volodymyr Zelenskiy praised what he called a strategic triumph in his nightly video message.
‘It does not yet provide assurance of security. It does not, however, guarantee that the enemy would not return,’ he stated. ‘However, this severely restricts the occupants’ actions. We shall gradually force them back from our sea, land, and sky.’
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