On the night of April 18, the Russian Federation launched a massive attack on the territory of Ukraine, particularly in the Odesa region, resulting in injuries to people and damage to critical infrastructure facilities.
This is reported by Finway
Consequences of the Strikes in Odesa
According to Oleg Kiper, the head of the Odesa Regional Military Administration, port and industrial infrastructure facilities in the Odesa district were hit by enemy fire. Administrative buildings, warehouses with agricultural products, buses, and tanks were damaged. As a result of the shelling, one person was preliminarily reported injured. Rescuers promptly extinguished fires caused by the impacts and continue to work on eliminating the aftermath of the attack.
“Port and industrial infrastructure facilities in the Odesa district were hit. Administrative buildings, warehouses with agricultural products, buses, and tanks were damaged,” he wrote on his Telegram channel.
Situation in Other Regions
Russian troops continue to attack frontline areas of Ukraine. In Kramatorsk, Donetsk region, a nighttime shelling resulted in injuries to two people, damage to residential buildings, and the need for rescuers to provide first aid to the victims. Additionally, emergency service personnel evacuated three residents from blocked apartments in a multi-story building.
In the village of Velykyi Burluk in Kharkiv region, a 79-year-old woman was injured after an enemy drone struck her house. A fire that covered an area of 100 square meters was extinguished by rescuers under the threat of repeated shelling. The residential building and summer kitchen sustained serious damage.
In Zaporizhzhia, a 40-year-old woman was injured as a result of a combined shelling. She received the necessary medical assistance, and the number of injured is being clarified.
The Russian army regularly employs various types of weaponry, including strike drones, missiles, aerial bombs, and multiple rocket launch systems, systematically attacking cities and civilian infrastructure across all regions of Ukraine.
Ukrainian authorities and international organizations unanimously classify these attacks as war crimes, emphasizing their targeted nature. Systematic shelling of vital infrastructure, healthcare facilities, as well as attempts to deprive the population of electricity, heat, water supply, communication, and medical assistance exhibit signs of genocidal actions.
Lawyers, researchers, and human rights defenders stress that during the large-scale war, Russia is committing all types of crimes that may fall under the definition of genocide. This includes public calls for the destruction of Ukrainians, targeted shelling of vital systems and medical facilities, persecution and extermination of pro-Ukrainian individuals in occupied territories, extermination of the intelligentsia, deportation of children, and destruction of Ukrainian cultural values.
The Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide, adopted by the UN General Assembly in 1948, obliges 149 member countries to prevent acts of genocide and punish them regardless of the time – during war or in peacetime. According to the Convention, genocide is defined as acts aimed at the complete or partial destruction of a national, ethnic, racial, or religious group, as well as killings, causing serious bodily harm, creating conditions for the destruction of the group, preventing births within the group, and forcibly transferring children to another group, public incitement to commit such acts.
At the same time, the Russian leadership denies that their army is deliberately targeting the civilian infrastructure of cities and villages in Ukraine during the full-scale war, destroying hospitals, schools, kindergartens, energy facilities, and water supply systems.