Kyiv, Ukraine, March 3 (AFP/APP):Russian attacks killed one person in Ukraine’s Kherson region on Sunday as the toll from a drone strike in the city of Odesa climbed to 10, authorities said.
The latest deaths came a day after Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky pleaded with Western allies to supply more air-defence systems as Russia pounds his country with drones, missiles and artillery fire in the war’s third year.
Ukraine’s interior ministry reported one death and three people wounded in the southern Kherson region on Sunday following Russian strikes.
In the southern port city of Odesa on the Black Sea, two more bodies — a woman and her eight-month-old baby — were found following a Russian drone strike overnight between Friday and Saturday.
A seven-month-old baby and a two-year-old child were among the previously reported eight victims.
Odesa region governor Oleg Kiper revealed in a Telegram post that “the body of the deceased woman” was being pulled from the rubble.
Minutes later, Kiper added that “the body of another dead baby has just been found next to the woman’s body”.
Eight people had on Saturday been reported killed in the strike that destroyed a nine-story building, according to Interior Minister Igor Klymenko.
Close to 100 rescuers were involved in the search late on Saturday for around 10 missing people.
“A mother tried to cover her eight-month-old baby with her body. They were found in a tight embrace,” said the Ukrainian emergency services on Telegram.
“Two more lives were taken,” they added. “How it hurts.”
Kiper said the search and rescue operation was ongoing.
“Today, Odesa and the region are mourning the victims of the Russian attack,” he added.
“It is a great pain not only for the Odesa region, but for the whole of Ukraine.”
Emergency services had said on Saturday night that another eight people were wounded.
Separate shelling attacks overnight between Friday and Saturday on the frontline regions of Kharkiv in the northeast and Kherson and Zaporizhzhia in the south killed another three people, Ukrainian officials had said.
“We need more air defences from our partners. We need to strengthen the Ukrainian air shield to add more protection for our people from Russian terror,” Zelensky said in a post on social media on Saturday.
“More air-defence systems and more missiles for air-defence systems save lives.”
Russian strikes between Saturday and Sunday in the eastern Donetsk region left five people wounded, according to local officials.
