Video of the pre-dawn attack showed the charred remains of buildings in the small town of Serhiivka, located about 31 miles southwest of Odesa. Ukrainian news reports said missiles struck a multi-story apartment building and a resort area.
"A terrorist country is killing our people. In response to defeats on the battlefield, they fight civilians," Andriy Yermak, the chief of staff to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said.
The deputy head of the Ukrainian presidential office, Kirill Tymoshenko, said 18 people died, including two children. A front man for the Odesa regional government, Serhiy Bratchuk, said on the Telegram messaging app that another 30 had been injured.
Sixteen of the 18 victims died in the strike on the apartment building, Ukrainian emergency officials said.
The
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s followed the pullout of Russian forces from Snake Island on Thursday, a move that was expected to potentially ease the threat to nearby Odesa. The island sits along a busy shipping lane. Russia took control of it in the opening days of the war in the apparent hope of using it as a staging ground for an assault on Odesa.