Putin airstrike targets Odesa hotel in two-hour onslaught – Ukraine latest

Air strikes on the Odesa region have destroyed a high-rise hotel and killed at least two people.

Early on Monday morning, Russian attacks in the region left a high-rise hotel destroyed and at least two workhouse workers dead.

An air strike on Monday night saw further attacks on the key Ukrainian grain exporting port of Izmail, injuring two people and damaging infrastructure, the governor of the Odesa region said on Tuesday.

A fire ripped through Hotel Odesa, which was not in use at the time, as a result of the strike on Monday morning.

Footage shared by the State Emergency Service of Ukraine on Monday morning (25 September) shows authorities working on the site.

Ukrainian MP Kira Rudik has called for an urgent upgrade in the air defence around Odesa, following repeated Russian attacks.

She posted to social media platform X, previosuly known as Twitter, to say: “Odesa region urgently needs an air defence upgrade as Russia escalates air attacks. We must protect everyone and everything until Russians are weakened and stopped.”

A Ukrainian drone attack on Russia’s Kursk resulted in power being cut off to about seven settlements in the region, the region’s governor Roman Starovoyt said on Tuesday. He said there were no reports of injuries.

Earlier, Russia’s defence ministry said its air defence systems had destroyed one Ukraine-launched drone over the Kursk at around 5:30am. It followed reports of multiple drones being shot down over the region that borders Ukraine on Monday.

There was no immediate comment from Ukraine.

A overnight Russian air strike on the key Ukrainian grain exporting port of Izmail injured two people and damaged infrastructure, the governor of the Odesa region said on Tuesday.

A port building, storage facilities and more than 30 trucks and cars were damaged in the attack, which lasted more than two hours, Oleh Kiper said on the Telegram messaging app.

The Ukrainian military reported shooting down 26 of the 38 Iranian-made attack drones it said were launched by Russia, Reuters reports.

Moscow has intensified its air attacks on Ukrainian ports on the Danube River, including Izmail and Reni, after it quit a grain deal in July that ensured the safe export of Ukrainian grains.

Separately on Tuesday, a Russian missile strike also damaged a local enterprise in the southern Ukrainian city of Kryvyi Rih, Mayor Oleksandr Vilkul said. There were no immediate reports of casualties.

There was no immediate comment from Russia.

Ukraine has fought back courageously against Mr Putin’s warped bid to restore territory lost to Moscow with the collapse of the Soviet Union and has continued to defy the odds by defending itself against Russian onslaughts with the help of Western military aid.

Russian textbooks praising Vladimir Putin’s invasion of Ukraine are an attempt to encourage “self-sacrifice” among schoolchildren, experts have warned.

One chapter claims that Ukrainian membership of Nato could have led to a catastrophic war and “possibly the end of civilisation”, an outcome it says Russia had to prevent.

Alexander Butler reports:

Ukraine has launched a fresh missile attack on a military airfield in Crimea’s Sevastopol, officials said.

Sevastopol, a vulnerable Russian target in Crimea where Moscow parks its Black Sea Fleet, has come under repeated targeting in recent months as Ukraine looks to destroy Vladimir Putin’s logistics and infrastructure on the peninsula that Russia had illegally annexed in 2014.

Russian air defence units downed a missile near the Belbek military airfield in the late hours on Monday, Russian-backed governor Mikhail Razvozhayev said on his official Telegram channel early Tuesday.

Sevastopol remained under an air raid alert starting around 11.30pm on Monday, as per Mr Razvozhayev’s Telegram message. It continued for an hour, covering midnight, as Russian air defence systems were activated.

Zug, Switzerland’s wealthiest canton, is famous for its flawless alpine vistas and low taxes. And here in the rolling hills sits Kloster Menzingen monastery, a temporary home to 160 Ukrainian refugees who have fled their war-torn country.

“They were bombing my city last night,” explains law graduate Hana, 28, from Odesa, as she walks along the gloomy corridor in the southern wing of the convent.

“This is our life, waking up to news that our towns and cities are once more under siege,” she says.

This is the heartwarming moment a six-year-old Ukrainian girl who lost her leg to a Russian missile strike learns to ride a bike again with the help of her prosthetic leg she named Kesha.

Ukraine’s Ministry of Defence posted footage of brave Marinya cycling a small tricycle through cones as she recovers from the bombing of Kherson in May last year.

The girl, the first Ukrainian child to be fitted with a prosthetic since the Russian invasion, manages to complete the course solo under the watchful eye of physiotherapists at The Kyiv Institute of Rehabilitation.