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Norwegian diplomats caught up ‘in the epicentre of the strike’ on historic hotel, says Zelensky
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At least seven people have been injured after Russia launched a missile attack on the historic centre of Ukraine’s Black Sea port city Odesa, seriously damaging the Unesco World Heritage Site.
President Volodymyr Zelensky said Norwegian diplomats had been among those “who were in the epicentre of the strike” and that the attack underscored the need to strengthen Ukraine’s air defences.
Vladimir Putin‘s forces had aimed the attack “directly on the city, on ordinary civilian buildings”, he said.
Meanwhile, US president Donald Trump said that his administration was in a “very serious” discussion with Russia about the Ukraine war and suggested he and Mr Putin could take “significant” action towards ending it soon.
“We will be speaking, and I think will perhaps do something that’ll be significant,” he said. However, when asked if he spoke directly with his Russian counterpart, Mr Trump said: “I don’t want to say that.”
Earlier, Ukraine’s military said it had destroyed a Russian command post in the border region of Kursk.
At least five people have died overnight as Russian drone and missile strikes continued to pound Ukraine’s towns and cities, local officials said.
Meanwhile, Moscow’s troops continued their grinding advance through the country’s east.
A Russian missile strike on an apartment block in the Ukrainian city of Poltava killed at least four people and injured 10 more, Ukraine’s emergency services reported.
Some 21 people were rescued from the five-storey building, which partially collapsed following the attack, said the Poltava region’s acting governor, Volodymyr Kohut.
Rescue teams remain at the site.
Russian forces took control of the village of Krymske in Ukraine’s Donetsk region, Russian news agencies cited Russia’s defence ministry as saying on Saturday.
The ministry said its forces had launched attacks aimed at Ukraine’s gas and other energy infrastructure and had shot down 108 Ukrainian drones in the last 24 hours, the agencies reported.
Reuters could not immediately verify the battlefield reports.
Officials said that the Russian forces also damaged buildings in the city of Zaporizhzhia in southeastern Ukraine.
Ukrainian air defence was also repelling the attacks in Kyiv, but there were no immediate reports of major damage or casualties in the capital, they said.
“Russia’s daily attacks on Ukraine are a signal that the aggressor will not stop committing its crimes,” Ukrainian Ombudsman Dmytro Lubinets said on Telegram.
“Last night and in the morning, Russia shelled Ukraine again: Odesa, Poltava, Kharkiv, Zaporizhzhia… The terrorist targets civilian infrastructure: residential buildings, educational institutions, cars.”
Russia launched a barrage of drones and missiles on Ukraine on Saturday, killing at least four civilians and damaging residential buildings and infrastructure across the country, Ukrainian officials said.
The Interior Ministry said that a Russian missile slammed into a residential building in the central city of Poltava, killing three people and injuring 10, including a child.
The ministry posted pictures on the Telegram messaging app showing the residential building with several top floors smashed and thick columns of smoke rising into the sky. Fire brigades and dozens of rescuers were going through the rubble.
One person was killed and four were wounded in the city of Kharkiv in the northeast as the result of a drone attack, the Kharkiv mayor said.
Intelligence sources say one refinery had been hit by four Ukrainian drones, causing ‘significant damage”
The fall of Pokrovsk opens up Russia’s army s in the east, potentially opening avenues for attacks in several directions
Russia is claiming it has captured another village in its relentless offensive in eastern Ukraine’s Donetsk region and as it closes in on the critical Ukrainian logistics hub of Pokrovsk after almost three years of war
President Volodymyr Zelensky said Norwegian diplomats had been among those “who were in the epicentre of the strike” in Ukraine’s Black Sea port of Odesa.
Online pictures posted by regional governor Oleh Kiper and by Odesa mayor Hennady Trukhanov showed the lobby and other parts of the Hotel Bristol, a luxury landmark built at the end of the 19th century, reduced to rubble.
The Odesa Philharmonic concert hall, opposite the hotel, suffered damage with many of its windows smashed.
Online video showed fragments strewn on a street several hundred metres (yards) away near the opulent opera house from the same era.
Museums in the district also suffered damage.
President Donald Trump on Friday said his administration has already had “very serious” discussions with Russia about its war in Ukraine and that he and Russian president Vladimir Putin could soon take “significant” action toward ending the grinding conflict.
“We will be speaking, and I think will perhaps do something that’ll be significant,” Mr Trump said in an exchange with reporters in the Oval Office.
“We want to end that war. That war would have not started if I was president.”
Mr Trump did not say who from his administration has been in contact with the Russians but insisted the two sides were “already talking”.
Asked if he has already spoken directly with Mr Putin, Mr Trump was coy: “I don’t want to say that.”
Mr Trump has said repeatedly he wouldn’t have allowed the conflict to start if he had been in office, even though he was president as fighting grew in eastern Ukraine between Kyiv’s forces and separatists backed by Moscow, ahead of Mr Putin sending in tens of thousands of troops in 2022.
Mr Trump since returning to office has criticized Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky, saying he should have made a deal with Mr Putin to avoid the conflict.
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