Russia unleashes missile attack, hits critical port facilities in Odesa

This comes days after Putin blamed Ukraine for attack on Kerch Bridge linking Russia with Crimean Peninsula

Russia unleashed intense drone and missile attacks overnight Wednesday, damaging critical port infrastructure in southern Ukraine, including grain and oil terminals, and wounding at least 12 people, officials said.

The bombardment targeted the port city of Odesa, days after President Vladimir Putin blamed Ukraine for an attack on the crucial Kerch Bridge linking Russia with the Crimean Peninsula, which the Kremlin illegally annexed from Kyiv in 2014. Putin also pulled Moscow out of its participation in the Black Sea Grain Initiative, a wartime deal that enabled Ukraine’s exports to reach many countries facing the threat of hunger.

Russian emergency officials in Crimea, meanwhile, said more than 2,200 people were evacuated from four villages because of a fire at a military facility. The blaze forced the closure of an important highway, according to Sergey Aksyonov, the Moscow-appointed head of the peninsula. He didn’t specify a cause for the fire at the facility in Kirovsky district.