KYIV (Reuters) – Ukrainian air defence shot down 33 out of 37 Russian drones launched in an overnight attack that damaged an infrastructure facility in the southern Odesa region, officials and the military said on Friday.
The military South command said in a statement that 18 Shahed drones were downed over the Odesa region, and another four over Mykolaiv and Kherson in the south of the country.
The attack on the Odesa region comes just a day after the Russian forces hit the city during a visit by Ukraine’s president and Greece’s prime minister.
“At night the enemy again attacked the Odesa region with drones. Unfortunately, it was not possible to prevent the hits,” said Oleh Kiper, Odesa regional governor.
Kiper said an infrastructure facility in the region was damaged but provided no further details.
There were no immediate reports of casualties.
The military said the drones were launched from the Crimean peninsula annexed by Russia in 2014 and attacked in several waves from different directions with air alerts lasting for over three hours.
Drones were also downed over the central Kropyvnytskyi and the eastern Kharkiv regions, the air force and regional officials said.
The Black Sea port of Odesa and nearby region have come under increasing Russian attacks after Moscow quit a U.N.-brokered deal that allowed safe passage of Ukrainian grain shipments via the Black Sea.
Ukrainian navy officials said this week that Russia had launched over 880 attack drones and over 170 missiles on the Odesa region since July last year.
(Reporting by Olena Harmash; Editing by Toby Chopra)
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