We can now bring you some images from the southern Ukrainian city of Odesa – which has been the subject of an overnight air attack.
Oleg Kiper, governor of the region, said this morning that “two types of missiles” had struck port infrastructure, setting a non-residential high-rise building on fire and damaging a private house and a warehouse.
One woman was injured in the attack.
Odesa has been watched carefully by grain markets since Ukraine announced a “humanitarian corridor” for ships to sail into Black Sea ports and load grain for African and Asian markets, after Russia exited a deal that ensured the safe exports of Ukraine’s grain in July.
In his latest Telegram post, Mr Kiper shared these images from the scene…
Ukraine repels considerable overnight air offensive
Ukraine’s air defences have had a busy night.
The country’s air force has said it successfully destroyed 11 cruise missiles, 19 drones and two anti-ship missiles.
“The Russian invaders attacked Ukraine with Kalibr cruise missiles, P-800 Onyx anti-ship missiles, and Shahed type UAVs,” it said in a morning update.
The cruise missiles appear to have been sea-based – fired from a “small missile ship and submarine” in the Black Sea, and at least one missile was not destroyed.
Drones were launched from the southeast, while the Onyx anti-ship missiles came from the Crimean city of Sevastopol, it claimed.
The reports have not been verified, and it is unclear what damage was caused by the one missile that seemingly got through air defences.
The assumptions that need to hold for Ukraine to ensure ‘significant breakthrough’
The Institute for the Study of War (ISW) says there are three assumptions that need to hold in order for Ukraine to achieve a “significant breakthrough”.
The US-based thinktank said a “significant Ukrainian success will be more likely” if:
- Russian forces do not have the necessary reserves or combat power to maintain Russian defences in western Zaporizhzhia Oblast;
- Ukrainian forces retain “enough combat power” to continue pushing after “exhausting” Russian armies;
- Russian defensive positions behind the current battle area are not as heavily mined or well prepared as the fortifications that Ukrainian forces have breached.
The ISW says this hypothesis “is invalid” if any of those three assumptions are wrong – but at the time of writing they’re believed to be correct.
It says Russia’s forces in Zaporizhzhia are spread thin, particularly in the western portion of the region – with the hope that Ukraine will be able to advance more rapidly there.
Elsewhere, Ukraine’s operations in Bakhmut have “kept Russian forces committed to eastern Ukraine” and away from the southern front – helping to deny Moscow “the creation of a strategic reserve” in the area.
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