Russia Targets Ukraine Ports in 'Mass Revenge Strike'

Russia's Defense Ministry said on Tuesday it had hit military targets in two Ukrainian port cities overnight in what it called "a mass revenge strike," a day after an attack on the Crimean bridge which it blamed on Kyiv.

The ministry said it had struck Odesa, where the Ukrainian navy has a facility, and Mykolaiv on Ukraine's Black Sea coast.

"The armed forces of the Russian Federation carried out a mass retaliatory strike overnight using precision sea-based weapons against facilities where terrorist acts against the Russian Federation were being prepared using uncrewed boats," the ministry said in a statement.

It said it had struck a ship repair plant near Odesa where such boats were being built.

"In addition, storage facilities holding around 70,000 tons of fuel used to supply the Ukrainian military's equipment were destroyed" near the cities of Mykolaiv and Odesa, it said.

It said all the targets had been struck and destroyed, citing fires and detonations as evidence.

Reuters could not independently confirm the account.

Ukraine's air force said earlier that six Kalibr cruise missiles and 31 out of 36 drones had been shot down, mostly over the coastal Odesa and Mykolaiv regions in the south.

A Russian couple was killed and their 14-year-old daughter wounded on Monday in what Moscow said was a Ukrainian attack that knocked out the road part of the bridge linking Russia to Crimea, which Moscow annexed from Ukraine in 2014.

Kyiv has not claimed responsibility for the attack. Ukrainian media said Ukrainian security services had used naval drones to attack the bridge – which had only recently returned to full operation after suffering severe damage in a similar attack last October.