Large Russian drone attack hits Ukraine's Odesa

Hind Al Soulia - Riyadh - KYIV — Ukrainian officials reported multiple regions came under Russian attack overnight — including the Black Sea port city of Odesa.

Three people were injured and a residential high-rise building and shopping centre were damaged as Russian drones pummeled the city. Regional governor Oleh Kiper said the attack caused emergency power outages.

“This is another reminder to the whole world: the war continues and Ukraine continues to fight,” the head of the Odesa region, Oleh Kiper, said in a statement.

He said blazes erupted at at least three locations after the attack late Thursday. “Civilian infrastructure, commercial facilities are on fire, cars damaged,” Kiper detailed.

Over 70 people and 20 fire engines were involved in extinguishing what the emergency services called “massive fires.”

The attack came shortly before Czech Republic's President Petr Pavel visited the region to hold meetings with the city's leaders and officials from nearby regions.

Deputy Prime Minister for the Restoration of Ukraine Oleksiy Kuleba wrote on Telegram that "the Russian Federation launched three groups of Shaheds into the city" during his meeting with Pavel.

A separate Russian attack near the city of Zaporizhzhia injured six people, including a 4-year-old boy, according to Ukraine's State Emergency Service.

It added that the attack caused a large fire, affecting several cars and residential buildings. Three houses were destroyed and several others damaged.

Three drone attacks also struck Sumy, in northeastern Ukraine, causing fires to erupt but without reports of injuries.

In total, the Ukrainian air force said that Russia fired 214 exploding drones and decoys in the latest wave of attacks. It said 114 of them were intercepted and another 81 were jammed.

Separately on Friday, Russia accused Ukraine of attacking a gas metering station in Russia's Kursk region — an allegation that Kyiv denied.

The facility lies in Sudzha, a part of Kursk that Russia claimed to have retaken from Ukrainian troops last week.

Ukraine confirmed its retreat from the Sudzha area, but refuted claims made by US President Donald Trump as well as his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin that Ukrainian troops were encircled by Russian forces in the region.

Moscow accused Ukraine of deliberately attacking the Sudzha gas metering station in an "act of terrorism."

In a post on Facebook, the General Staff of the Armed Forces of Ukraine the "station was repeatedly shelled by the Russians themselves," calling the attack a "provocation" from Moscow as part of a "discrediting campaign against Ukraine."

Ukraine and Russia agreed in principle Wednesday to a limited ceasefire after US President Donald Trump spoke with the countries’ leaders this week, though it remained to be seen what possible targets would be off limits to attack.

After a roughly hourlong call with Trump on Wednesday, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy told reporters that “technical” talks in Saudi Arabia this weekend would seek to resolve what types of infrastructure would be protected from attack under the agreement.

The three sides appeared to hold starkly different views about what the deal covered. While the White House said “energy and infrastructure” would be covered, the Kremlin declared that the agreement referred more narrowly to “energy infrastructure." Zelenskyy said he would also like railways and ports to be protected.

Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said Friday that the agreement reached between Trump and Putin referred only to energy facilities, adding that the Russian military is fulfilling Putin's order to halt such attacks for 30 days.

“The Russian military are currently refraining from strikes on Ukraine's energy infrastructure in accordance with the agreement reached between Russia and the United States,” Peskov said in a conference call with reporters. — Euronews