The attack took place on the first day of the invasion of Ukraine launched by President Vladimir Putin
Kyiv:
Russian forces on Thursday broke into the northern part of the Kyiv region, Ukraine’s border guards said, staging a Grad missile attack on government positions.
An AFP reporter north of the Ukrainian capital also saw several helicopters flying low towards the city, amid reports that an airport was under attack.
Local authorities said 18 people died on Thursday in an air strike on a military base near the Ukrainian port city of Odessa in the Black Sea.
“Eighteen people died – eight men and 10 women. Currently, we are still digging through the rubble,” the Odessa regional government said in a statement.
The attack came on the first day of an invasion of Ukraine that President Vladimir Putin launched after weeks of wrangling with the West over NATO’s presence in Eastern Europe.
It was the deadliest single attack so far reported by Ukrainian officials, who had previously put the death toll across the country at around 50 people, including about 10 civilians.
The attack hit a military base about 100 kilometers (62 miles) north of Odessa, in an area near Ukraine’s border with Moldova.
(Except for the title, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from an aggregated feed.)
