‘Massive’ Russian attack causes outages in Ukraine’s Odesa – mayor

This handout photograph taken on January 31, 2025 and released on the official Telegram channel of Mayor of Odesa Gennadiy Trukhanov shows security and emergency personnel outside a damaged hotel following a Russian missile attack in Odesa. Agence France-Presse

KYIV — A “massive” Russian attack on the southwestern Ukrainian port city of Odesa left a large residential area without heat or electricity, the mayor said Wednesday.

“As a result of a massive enemy strike on a densely populated area of the city, there is no electricity, water, and heating in a large part of the residential quarters,” Gennadiy Trukhanov said on Telegram.

He said in a separate post that 14 schools and over 500 homes were without power, adding that at least one person had been hospitalized.

READ: Ukraine’s Odesa opens a few beaches for the first time since Russian invasion

Trukhanov did not provide any further details about the nature of the attack.

For the past three years, Russia has been targeting Ukraine’s energy infrastructure, as well as its towns and villages.

The attack on Odesa came a day after Russia and the United States agreed to establish teams to negotiate a path to ending the war in Ukraine after talks that drew a strong rebuke from Kyiv over its exclusion.

READ: Russia says advancing towards flashpoint Ukrainian city