A Russian missile attack on the southern Ukrainian port city of Odesa overnight killed four people and severely damaged a Barbados-flagged cargo ship, Ukrainian authorities said on Wednesday.
The strike occurred late Tuesday as Ukraine backed a U.S. proposal for a 30-day ceasefire and agreed to immediate negotiations with Russia. Officials said the missile hit as the ship was being loaded with a grain shipment bound for Algeria.
“Unfortunately, four people died—citizens of Syria. The youngest victim was 18, the oldest was 24. Two more people were wounded—a Ukrainian and a Syrian,” said Oleksiy Kuleba, Ukraine’s vice prime minister for reconstruction.
Kuleba accused Russia of deliberately targeting Ukraine’s infrastructure, including key ports crucial to global food security.
Elsewhere, a missile strike on the central city of Kryvyi Rih, President Volodymyr Zelensky’s hometown, killed a 47-year-old woman, according to the governor of the Dnipropetrovsk region.
Ukraine’s air force reported that Russia had launched three missiles and 133 drones overnight, including Shahed-type attack drones. Ukrainian air defences intercepted 98 of the drones.
In the eastern Donetsk region, which Russia claims as its own, local prosecutors reported three additional fatalities and two injuries from Russian strikes.
