Huge columns of smoke cover the sky. Odessa woke up this Sunday with a startor, that of the thunder of the Russian bombardments against the infrastructure of this great Ukrainian port on the Black Sea, until now relatively sheltered from the fighting.
Around 6:00 in the morning (2:00 Bolivian time), half a dozen explosions shook the city walls, according to neighbors and AFP journalists. Then a black smoke covered a part of the horizon.
Several columns of smoke and flames arise from an industrial zone, whose access was closed by the police and armed men, but from where tanks are perceived.
From the roof of a building near the place, where you can see clothes hanging, Mykola, 22, watches the fire in shock.
“We woke up with a first explosion, then we saw lightning in the sky, then another, and another. I’ve lost count,” he explains to AFP.
“Then there was a brief interruption, and then again the windows lit upand we heard a noise, not knowing if it was going to go over or if it was going to fall on us,” he added.
Another neighbor, a young man named Ilya, wearing a cap and leading a pit bull on a leash, He shows journalists a shell splinter that arrived nearby, according to him.
“Petrol tankers started burning, we were bombed. It was really horrible and scary!” he says. “There are children who live here, many elderly people and there are no bomb shelters,” says Ilya, before leading a group of journalists to the roof of the building.
– Refinery and fuel tanks –
But after a few minutes, Ukrainian policemen in blue uniforms storm the roof. They ask the journalists to stop taking pictures and one of them rebukes the young man, orders him to tie up the dog and slaps him and punches him several times.
The policemen tie his hands behind his back with plastic handcuffs and make him get out. They then remind the journalists that the Ukrainian authorities have banned any publication about the location or damage from the bombing, and let them go.
“The Odessa region is one of the priority targets of the enemy. The enemy continues its perfidious practice of hitting sensitive infrastructure,” an officer of the Southern regional command of the Ukrainian army, Vladislav Nazarov, said in a statement. These bombardments caused no casualties, he said.
The Russian Ministry of Defense confirmed that firing of “sea and land-based missiles high-precision guns destroyed a refinery and three fuel and lubricant depots near the city of Odessa”.
According to the ministry, these facilities supplied fuel to the Ukrainian forces in the direction of the city of Mikolaivfurther east, where the Russian army fails in its advance towards Odessa.
Until now, this historic city has been relatively sheltered from the fierce fighting in the north and east of the country.. Sunday’s bombardments are the first to reach it for nearly two weeks.
After a brief interrogation and verification of his documentationthe policemen end up releasing Ilya.
