Ukraine: Six killed and 13 injured in Russian cruise missile strikes on Odesa

For the first time, ITV News has travelled to the frontline of the Ukrainian counter-offensive. Emma Murphy has been with military units near the area of Bakhmut from where she sent this eyewitness report.

Six people have been killed and dozens more injured after Russian forces fired cruise missiles at the southern Ukrainian city of Odesa on Tuesday night.

The strike, launched from the Black Sea, damaged homes, a warehouse, shops and cafes.

The attack involved four Kalibr cruise missiles - three of which were intercepted by air defences.

Three employees of a food warehouse were killed and seven others injured, while rescue workers were looking for possible survivors under the rubble, it added.

Another six people, including residents of a neighbouring house, were injured.

Andriy Kovalov, a spokesperson for Ukraine's general staff, said Russian forces have increased missile and aerial strikes on Ukraine.

It comes as Kyiv moves forward with the early stages of a counter-offensive against Russia’s military invasion of Ukraine.

Ukrainian troops have advanced 200-500 metres (650-1,600 feet) at various sections of the front line around the Donetsk city of Bakhmut and 300-350 metres (980-1,150 feet) in the southern Zaporizhzhia region, Ukraine’s Deputy defence minister Hanna Maliar claimed on Wednesday.

Russia has occupied and controls nearly one-fifth of Ukrainian territory.

The Ministry of Defence wrote on Twitter that southern Ukraine “has often been more permissible for Russian air operations” compared with other parts of the front.

Separately, the mayor of the central city of Kryvyi Rih, President Volodymyr Zelenskyy's hometown, said the death toll from a Russian strike a day earlier that hit an apartment building had risen to 12.

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