Feb 13 (Reuters) – Three Ukrainian brothers, including an eight-year-old, were killed near the eastern front line and a Russian drone attack killed one person and injured six others at one of Ukraine’s Black Sea ports near Odesa, Ukrainian officials said on Friday.
The mother and grandmother of the brothers – two of whom were 19 – were injured in the attack late on Thursday, the local prosecutors in the Donetsk region said on Friday.
The ports are Ukraine’s key maritime export arteries, crucial for its foreign trade and the survival of its wartime economy. Moscow has stepped up its attacks on both them and Ukraine’s energy infrastructure, and Kyiv has targeted Russian oil facilities, as U.S.-led efforts to end the war stall.
“Russia launched massive strikes on port and railway infrastructure,” Deputy Prime Minister Oleksiy Kuleba wrote on Telegram.
Infrastructure belonging to a business as well as fertiliser warehouses and vehicles, including freight wagons, were damaged, Kuleba said, adding that the attack sparked a fire.
The Ukrainian Sea Ports Authority did not name the port, saying only that it was one of the three around Odesa and continued to operate despite damage to infrastructure.
Ukraine’s air force said Russia launched 154 drones in total and one ballistic missile at Ukraine overnight. Air defences downed or neutralised 111 of the drones, it said.
Odesa regional governor Oleh Kiper said that energy, industrial, and residential infrastructure in the region was also targeted after reporting earlier that the attack caused “substantial” disruption to power, heat and water supplies.
Ukraine’s major private energy company DTEK said the damage to energy infrastructure in the city was “extremely serious” and the repairs will take a long time. It did not say which facility was hit.
Railway infrastructure in the southeastern Dnipropetrovsk region also came under attack in the past 24 hours, Kuleba said.
(Reporting by Anna Pruchnicka; Editing by Jamie Freed, Stephen Coates, Philippa Fletcher)
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