Drone Strike on Odesa High-Rise Kills Married Couple, Injures 14
Russian drones slammed into high-rise apartment buildings in Odesa late Thursday, igniting fires and killing a married couple, Ukrainian officials said. Fourteen others were injured in the attack, which marked the latest in a series of strikes targeting civilian infrastructure in Ukraine’s Black Sea port city.
Emergency crews worked through the night to extinguish blazes and search the wreckage for survivors. The couple’s bodies were found amid the rubble early Friday, their names not yet released. The building’s upper floors, where the drone is believed to have struck, were badly damaged by fire, and residents were evacuated as flames engulfed the structure.
“This is yet another example of deliberate terror,” Oleh Kiper, the regional governor, said in a statement. He confirmed that one of the Russian drones had directly hit the residential building, igniting a fire that spread quickly between the ninth and eleventh floors. More than 100 firefighters and emergency workers responded, rescuing trapped civilians and treating the wounded.
The strike was part of a larger wave of Russian drone attacks that targeted Odesa and other regions of southern Ukraine overnight. Ukrainian air defenses reportedly downed several drones, but not all were intercepted. The regional military administration said the drones used in the attack were Iranian-made Shahed models, which Russia has deployed extensively in recent months.
In a separate incident, a gas pipeline near the impact site was damaged, prompting authorities to suspend supply to parts of the city. Civilian vehicles parked outside the building were also destroyed.
The assault came just days after a massive Russian barrage on June 10, in which Odesa was hit with more than 300 drones and several missiles, killing at least two and injuring 15. That strike damaged a maternity hospital, several residential buildings, and vital infrastructure in the city.
Since the start of June, Odesa has endured multiple rounds of attacks that Ukrainian officials say are aimed at crippling morale and displacing civilians. Russia has denied intentionally targeting civilian areas, insisting its attacks are focused on military infrastructure—a claim Ukrainian officials routinely dispute.
As investigators comb through the ruins and local authorities survey the damage, the human toll continues to rise. The deaths of the couple mark the latest civilian casualties in a conflict that shows no sign of abating.
