site.btaUPDATED Eight Injured in Overnight Attack on Odesa

Eight people, including a child, have been injured in an overnight attack on Odesa, with two of them hospitalized, Serhii Lysak, head of the Odesa City Military Administration, said on Telegram on Wednesday.

“It was a difficult night for Odesa. The enemy once again launched a massive attack on the city, Infrastructure has been damaged,” Lysak said.

A 24-storey residential building was damaged, with apartments on several floors destroyed. Damage was also reported at office buildings and two educational institutions.

All emergency and utility services are working to deal with the aftermath of the attack.

Energy workers are working to restore electricity as quickly as possible in the parts of the city that remain without power following the attack, Lysak said, adding that operational assistance centres have been set up.

An air-raid alert was issued at 1:59 a.m. local time and continued for more than an hour, according to an earlier statement by Lysak. 

Bulgarians in the Odesa region number more than 150,000 and were the third largest population group in Ukraine in 2001, according to the official census. Between 50,000 and 60,000 Bulgarians live in the city of Odesa itself. The largest compact Bulgarian population is concentrated in the Bolhrad, Izmail and Bilhorod-Dnistrovskyi districts.