March 17, 2024, 8:55 a.m.
(Photo: OK "Pivden")
The attack by unmanned aerial vehicles of the Shahed-131/136 type lasted about three hours on the night of March 17 and no hits were avoided.
This was reported by the South Operational Command.
The enemy launched the drones from the temporarily occupied Crimea. They entered from the Black Sea and maneuvered between residential buildings and in the industrial neighborhoods of Odesa.
In total, 13 unmanned aerial vehicles were shot down by air defense fighters in the skies of Odesa region, and another 1 was shot down on approach in the skies of Mykolaiv region.
However, it was not possible to avoid hits. In Odesa region, barrage munitions damaged two mothballed agricultural enterprises. Fires broke out and industrial buildings were destroyed. The fires were extinguished. No people were injured.
Earlier, rescuers completed search and rescue operations at the site of a missile strike in Odesa that Russian troops launched on March 15. More than two dozen people were killed.
The night of March 2 was the most tragic night in Odesa since the beginning of the war. A direct hit by a drone on a nine-story residential building killed 12 people, including five children. 18 apartments were destroyed. 11 buildings were left without heating.
Prosecutor General of Ukraine Andriy Kostin noted that for the first time in Odesa, the consequences of a drone attack on the city were similar to those of a missile hit. March 3 was declared a day of mourning in Odesa.
On March 5, relatives and friends say goodbye in Raukhivka, Bereziv district, Odesa region, to a family of soldiers killed in a massive enemy attack.
On March 6, Volodymyr Zelenskyy and Greek Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis visited Odesa and paid tribute to the people who died on March 2 as a result of a Russian "shahed" hitting a residential building.