7 dead in Russian drone strike

Odesa, March 2

A Russian drone hit an apartment block in the southern Ukrainian port city of Odesa on Saturday, killing at least seven people including a three-year-old and a woman together with her infant child, regional authorities said.

“Rescuers in Odesa have just uncovered the bodies of a mother with a three-month-old baby,” Interior Minister Ihor Klymenko said in a post on his Telegram channel beside a photograph of a rescue worker next to a bloodied blanket, a baby’s arm visible on one side and an adult arm extending out the other.

Eight people were wounded, and rescuers were still looking for more people under the debris, Oleh Kiper, Odesa regional governor, said.

Smoke poured from rubble strewn across the ground where the drone had ripped a chunk several storeys high out of the building.

In Russia’s St Petersburg, a drone crashed into a five-storey building. No casualties were reported. — Reuters