By EFE
Apr 30, 2024, 17:02 PM EDT
Russia carried out an attack near a historic building in Odessa known as ‘Harry Potter Castle’ with an Iskander missile loaded with cluster munitions, which makes the Ukrainian Prosecutor’s Office think that it sought to kill as many Ukrainian civilians as possible. .
Five people were killed in the attack and thirty others were injured. Some of the victims were walking in the area at the time of the missile fall.
In addition to causing a fire in this castle, which is located on the shores of the Black Sea in the tourist district of Arcadia (Odessa) and belongs to a university foundation, the cluster munition explosions damaged other buildings in the area.
“The attack was carried out with an Iskander ballistic missile with cluster munition in the warhead. “This is indiscriminate weaponry,” reads a statement from the Ukrainian Prosecutor’s Office, which adds that metal fragments and parts of the missile were found within a radius of almost a mile.
The Prosecutor’s Office adds that “there is reason to believe that the decision to use this weaponry” in the attack by Russia sought to “kill as many Ukrainian civilians as possible.”
Along with the statement, the Prosecutor’s Office has distributed a video in which the explosions of the multiple submunitions or bomblets to which the cluster munition owes its name can be seen.
Cluster munitions are typically used to destroy multiple targets located at a certain distance apart from each other. This type of ammunition is usually used to hit tank or infantry formations and damage or knock out the largest number of armored vehicles or combatants scattered in a certain area.
According to Odessa military expert Alexander Kovalenko, this is the first time Russia has used cluster munitions against the city. “The idea of this type of ammunition is to hit a wide area, which is what happened yesterday in Odessa, except that the blow was not directed at military targets, but at civilian ones,” Kovalenko wrote on his social networks.
Kovalenko stated that there were no military objectives in the area.
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