Only hundreds of feet from where Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy was meeting with Greek Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis in the Ukrainian port city of Odesa, a Russian missile exploded early Wednesday morning. Sources report that this was “the closest call ever,” aside from Zelenskyy’s visits to troops on the front lines. Neither of the leaders was harmed, but at least 5 Ukrainians lost their lives. Greek State Minister Stavros Papastavrou confirmed that none of the members of the Greek delegation was injured or killed.
Zelenskyy showed the Greek Prime Minister around the port, and the two were about to leave by car when the air raid siren blasted. Shortly after, a missile hit the port. It is unlikely that Zelenskyy or Kyriakos were the intended targets; the source revealed that the Russians were probably just striking their usual targets. This is the third year of Moscow’s brutal assault, and air strikes have been commonplace in Odesa since February 2022.
“Yes, a missile strike was carried out in Odesa, probably by a ballistic weapon, hitting one of the buildings in the port infrastructure. But this is not in any way related to a specific visit. It is related to the terror that the enemy is carrying out quite methodically,” a spokesperson for the Ukrainian Southern Defense Forces said after the attack.
This strike is “yet another reminder of how Russia is continuing to attack Ukraine recklessly every single day and of Ukraine’s urgent needs, in particular, for air defense interceptors,” a U.S. National Security Council spokesperson said, “We again call on the House of Representatives to take action to support Ukraine so that we can provide the Ukrainian armed forces with the equipment they desperately need to defend against these outrageous Russian attacks.”
“We saw this attack today,” Zelenskyy said during a joint press conference. “You see who we’re dealing with, they don’t care where to hit. I know that there were victims today. I don’t know all the details yet, but I know that there are dead, there are wounded.”
Mitsotakis described the event as a “most vivid reminder that there is a real war going on here.” He continued to say “This is one more reason why all European leaders should come to Ukraine. Because it is one thing to hear the description from the media or from President Zelenskyy and it is quite another to experience the war first-hand.”
