At least 9 killed, 34 injured after Russian unleashes 70 drones, missiles against Ukraine

Oct. 10 (UPI) -- Russian missile and drone strikes against civilian and infrastructure targets across Ukraine killed 9 people and injured dozens, authorities said Thursday.

All but one of the deaths were the result of a missile attack on the southwestern grain port of Odessa that struck a Panama-flagged civilian container ship which also injured 11 people, according to Odessa Gov. Oleh Kiper.

He said that the victims were all Ukrainian citizens including a 46-year-old male port worker and another man, 26, both of whom were killed, with at least seven hospitalized with serious injuries.

Senior officials in President Volodymyr Zelensky 's government in Kyiv condemned the incident, the third against a civilian vessel in the past four days, saying it was a deliberate attack targeting world food security .

"I urge all states and organizations to condemn Russian attacks and take action to stop the aggressor, ensure freedom of navigation and global food security," Foreign Minister Andrii Sybiha wrote in a post on X .

The onslaught targeting a dozen provinces included 62 Shahed-type drones, two-thirds of which were downed or disabled by Ukrainian air defenses, and ballistic, cruise, anti-aircraft and aerial missiles.

One person was killed and 10 injured in neighboring Kherson province, to the east of Odessa, in the past 24 hours after a high-rise building, six houses, a utility plant, educational and medical facilities and other buildings were damaged, according to the region's governor, Oleksandr Prokudin.

At least six people were injured in the country's southern industrial heartland.

Dnipro Governor Serhii Lysak said an 82-year-old woman in Kryvyi Rih had been injured in a Russian strike on a five-story residential block and a 45-year-old man was injured when an agri-business premises was targeted in Synenykove.

Four people were injured when houses were destroyed in Russian attacks on the city of Zaporizhzhia, the provincial governor, Ivan Fedorov, said in a social media update .

Further to the east in Donetsk, Russian forces injured a civilian in an attack on Yasna Poliana village with other strikes in the area damaging a school, two administrative buildings, houses and other structures.

In the northeastern Kharkiv province, which borders Russia, Gov. Oleh Syniehubov reported in a Telegram post that six people had been injured, including an 81-year-old woman who was hurt after Russian forces targeted a 12-story apartment building in Kharkiv city.

A 49-year-old man was injured in the Zelenyi Hai village, 40 miles east of Kharkiv.

In Kupiansk, 70 miles southeast of Kharkiv, a 65-year-old man was injured and a 76-year-old woman and two 54-year-old men in Kozacha Lopan were injured.

Cherkasy, Chernihiv, Kirovohrad, Luhansk, Mykolaiv and Sumy provinces were also targeted but there were no injuries or deaths.

The airborne assault came as Zelensky was on a tour of European capitals , including London, Paris, Rome and Berlin, in an effort to shore up support ahead of the coming winter.

He met with British Prime Minister Keir Starmer and NATO Secretary-General Mark Rutte on Thursday in London.

A meeting in Berlin with U.S. President Joe Biden and other Western backers scheduled for Saturday suffered a setback after Biden was forced to stay stateside to deal with the emergency imposed by Hurricane Milton.