- November 18, 2024
- 2:12 pm
- Ukraine
“My heart is breaking… Russia hit a residential building with ballistics in Odessa. People's bodies are lying right on the road.” – in these words Chief Rabbi of Ukraine Moshe Azman expressed pain for what happened.
The morning of November 18, 2024 became another dark day for the city. The Russian army launched a massive missile attack on Odessa (Ukraine), firing 38 missiles.
The head of the Odessa OVA Oleg Kiper confirmed that the strike was deliberate and aimed at destroying civilian infrastructure. Among the victims were ordinary people: mothers with children, energy workers, random passers-by.
“A powerful blow was struck in Odessa at a hotel-dormitory where Ukrainian military personnel lived,” they have already cynically reported Russian propagandists.
Russia is a terrorist country that must answer for every war crime!
“These are not random blows – demonstrative blows. After calls and meetings with Putin, after all the false gossip in the media about supposedly “abstaining” from strikes. Russia is showing what it is really interested in: only war. And this signal should be heard in all parts of the world, from the halls where members of the G20 meet to all the capitals of the world,” said President of Ukraine Zelensky.
The scale of the tragedy
As of the morning of November 18, the victims of the attack were:
- 8 people, including a child, died
- 18 were injuredof which 4 are in serious condition
- Several dozen families were left homeless
Power supply was disrupted for more than 300 thousand subscribers, especially in the southern regions of the city. The list of victims includes two power engineers who died in the line of duty.
Witnesses: “The earth was burning”
Residents of destroyed houses shared their memories:
“It’s just a horror movie, the earth was burning. We were sitting in the basement, the children were screaming, the double-glazed windows flew out, but, thank God, we weren’t hit,” said Anna, a resident of one of the affected apartments.
“The cars burned completely, the blast wave overturned ours into the neighboring yard,” added Konstantin, another eyewitness.
Many lost not only their homes, but also property acquired over the years.
Authorities' reaction
Head of the Office of the President of Ukraine Andriy Ermak said:
“The Russians are deliberately killing people by attacking civilian targets.”
Ombudsman Dmitry Lubinets noted that one of the missiles hit an educational institution, but did not explode. This only miraculously prevented a new tragedy.
Parallels with Sumy
Less than 24 hours earlier, a Russian missile hit an apartment building in Sumy. 11 people died there, including two children (a 9-year-old boy and a 14-year-old girl). Another 89 people were injured.
Table: Comparison of attacks on Odessa and Sumy
| City | Date | Death toll | Victims | Major damage |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Odessa | November 18 | 8 | 18 | Residential buildings, infrastructure |
| Sumy | November 17 | 11 | 89 (11 children) | Apartment building |
“NAnews” about Russian war crimes
“Against this background, the Western media hastened to loudly announce the long-awaited permission from Western leaders to use modern weapons deep into the territory of the Russian Federation. And they immediately began to backtrack, even to the point of deleting information from the pages of the authoritative Le Figaro about permission to use Storm Shadow missiles – the longest-range weapons available to the Ukrainian Armed Forces. And it turns out that shorter-range missiles were only allowed to fire at the Kursk region.
The fact that the genocide of Ukrainians is not a sufficient “escalation” for Western countries to finally provide Kyiv with at least some semblance of arms parity has long been clear. There is no one and there is no need to ask the question “how many civilians should die in their apartments and on their streets.”
But if Moscow decides, for example, to launch a direct strike on Ukrainian nuclear power plants, will this also not worry anyone, at least in European capitals? Without an effective deterrence system that provides for large-scale armament of Ukraine with the right to free use, the entire continent is in danger. At least they thought about themselves,” he wrote Leonid Nevzlin.
These events confirm Russia's failure to comply with the laws of war. Every strike on residential areas is a crime against humanity. NAnews – Israel News continues to monitor the situation in order to tell the truth and support Ukraine in its struggle.
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