A Ukrainian mother and her three-month-old baby killed when a Russian missile hit a residential tower block in Odesa on Saturday have been identified.
Videos from Odesa yesterday showed the attack, with a huge ball of fire and smoke erupting from the building as it was struck by a flying object. At least eight people are believed to have been killed, and a further 18 injured.
Valeria Hlodan, 27, and her baby daughter Kira were in their apartment at the time of the strike. Ms Hlodan’s mother – who was originally from Russia – was also killed.
The strike came a day before both Russia and Ukraine marked Orthodox Easter, with pictures showing president Vladimir Putin on Sunday attending a service at the Cathedral of Christ the Saviour in Moscow. Many Ukrainians and Russians celebrate Easter according to the Julian calendar, with Easter Sunday falling this year on April 24.
The attack sparked outrage in Ukraine at Putin over the missile strike on the coastal city, which hit the family’s residential block while supposedly targeting a military target using a Tu-95 strategic bomber flying over the Caspian Sea, according to reports.
In his customary nightly address to the nation, an emotional Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky vowed to find and punish those responsible for the missile strike.
‘The war started when this baby was 1 month old. Can you imagine what is happening?’ Zelensky said. ‘They are just b***ards. I don’t have any other words for it, just b***ards.’
Zelensky urged Ukrainians to observe a curfew and not attend Orthodox Easter services overnight. The lengthy services traditionally begin late Saturday and run through Sunday morning. ‘But starting from 5 a.m. you may go to the church in your city, town or community,’ he said.
On the attack and the Russian invasion, which today entered its third month, Zelensky said: ‘The world has not seen such barbarism in 80 years.’ Zelensky’s chief of staff Andriy Yermark said: ‘Nothing is sacred…. The evil will be punished.’
Thousands of Ukrainians have fled to Odesa since the start of the war and there had previously been only a handful of attacks on the city.
In recent days, the local authorities had even begun dismantling anti-tank barriers and some checkpoints in the city centre after the Ukrainian military foiled a series of Russian strikes. But the attack raised fears more could be immanent in the city.
Analysts believe Putin wants to capture the city and form a land bridge in the south of Ukraine, between Russia and Transnistria – the pro-Russian breakaway region of Moldova – in order to cut off Kyiv’s access to the Black Sea.
The mayor of Odesa Gennadiy Trukhanov said in front of the blitzed apartment block: ‘Behind my back is what the [Russian] occupiers name ‘a military object’.
‘What they hit today with their high-precision weapon, this is what they call a military object. Eight people were killed, one of them a three-month-old baby girl, a resident of Odesa, who wasn’t given a chance to see life.
‘Scumbags you are, may you burn in hell,’ he said.