Russian ballistic missiles hit residential building in Odesa Oblast, four dead, including teen

The Russian Armed Forces attacked Odesa Oblast with ballistic missiles in the night of October 10 – 11, 2024, destroying a two-story building. Oleh Kiper, head of the Odesa Oblast Military Administration, reported four deaths, including a teenager.

Emergency services extracted four people from the debris, while three lost their lives under the rubble. The victims include a 43-year-old woman, a 22-year-old man, and a 16-year-old girl. Another woman succumbed to her injuries at the hospital. The attack left ten more people injured, with nine requiring hospitalization. Four remain in critical condition.

Law enforcement officials are currently investigating this latest Russian attack on civilians in Odesa Oblast.

Previously, the Russian Armed Forces launched a missile attack on port infrastructure in Odesa Oblast on the evening of October 9, 2024, killing nine people and injuring eight others. 

On September 25-26, Russian forces killed a 62-year-old woman and caused damage to houses and cars in Odesa Oblast, according to Kiper.

To provide context, the Russian Federation uses temporarily occupied Crimea as a military foothold for its military aggression from the south of Ukraine, shelling Ukrainian cities from the peninsula. Ukrainian authorities have repeatedly stated the importance of de-occupying the Crimean Peninsula.

Ukraine has repeatedly called on countries worldwide to impose restrictive sanctions on the Russian Federation to compel it to comply with international law, including UN Charta.

Recently, SWR network investigators revealed that German industrial goods continue flowing to Russia despite sanctions. The investigation found that Russia aims to increase domestic production using German engineering products, as sanctions prohibit importing military-purpose goods.

According to Russian customs documents obtained by SWR, as of the end of December 2023, over 300 shipments from German manufacturers had been delivered to Russia. These were mostly large industrial machines or so-called CNC machines.

These computer-controlled machines, essential for cutting steel, bending sheet metal, and automated welding, play a crucial role in manufacturing vehicle and aircraft parts and ammunition.

Bloomberg reports that Moscow has returned almost a third of its blacklisted vessels to service, accelerating its use of sanctioned tankers in the Russian oil trade.

The agency found that at least 21 of 72 tankers sanctioned by U.S. OFAC, UK Treasury, or EU in 2023 have transported 24 Russian oil cargoes. Increased buyer confidence and limited concern about London’s measures have enabled Moscow and its clients to find workarounds. Seven tankers loaded cargoes in early October alone, up from six in August-September and five previously.

B4Ukraine, a global civil society coalition, reveals that Christian Dior Couture has renewed its Russian trademark registration after a purported withdrawal. Despite LVMH announcing the closure of 124 Russian stores on March 4, 2022, Dior maintained secret supply channels.

The coalition notes that Dior never fully condemned Moscow’s invasion. Russian customs data shows supply chains remained active, partially recovering by fall 2022. Direct shipments from France totaled $2 million in March 2023, with additional supplies routed through Latvia and Serbia. The company’s flagship store in Moscow’s GUM department store continues operations.

Earlier, Deutschlandfunk reported insights of the Russian sociologists who point out that the war brings a new one in Russia, a regime-loyal middle class, which the country could still carry for many years even after the war. 

Oleg Zhuravlyov from the Laboratory for Public Sociology explains that military families and arms industry workers now enjoy significantly higher incomes, enabling them to purchase cars and mortgages. Some industrial workers’ salaries have surged to over 2,000 euros monthly.

Earlier, the Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces of Ukraine, Oleksandr Syrskyy, revealed that since 24 February 2022, Russian missiles and drones have hit 11,879 facilities in Ukraine, with 6,203 being civilian and 5,676 military, Expres Defense reports.

He added that the Russians used 9,590 missiles and 13,997 drones to attack Ukraine, of which 2,429 missiles and 5,972 drones were shot down.

According to the UN Human Rights Monitoring Mission in Ukraine, at least 219 civilians were killed and 1,018 injured in Ukraine in July 2024, which makes it the deadliest month for civilians since October 2022. The UN Human Rights Monitoring Mission in Ukraine stated that the high number of casualties in July continues a trend of increasing civilian casualties since March 2024.

The UN pointed out that a large-scale coordinated attack launched by the Russian Armed Forces across Ukraine on July 8, 2024, killed at least 43 civilians, including 5 children, and injured 147, including 7 children, in Kyiv City, Dnipro City, Kryvyi Rih (Dnipropetrovsk region) and Kyiv region.

One missile in the 8 July attack also struck a hospital complex in Kyiv city, destroying the toxicology department of the Okhmatdyt National Children’s Hospital and significantly damaging the Center for Pediatric Cardiology and Cardiac Surgery.

In June and July, the most intensive offensive military operations by the Russian Armed Forces shifted from the northern Kharkiv region to the Donetsk region, the UN Human Rights Monitoring Mission in Ukraine noted. As a result, verified civilian casualties in the Donetsk region increased from 125 civilians killed or injured in May to 224 in June and 269 in July 2024.

The vast majority of civilian casualties (90%) and damage to educational and health facilities (86%) continued to occur in Government-controlled territory.

As for now, it is impossible to determine the exact number of casualties, as Ukrainian law enforcement agencies and the representatives of the ICC have no access to the temporarily occupied territories of Ukraine.