Russian drones attack kyiv and Odessa hours before NATO summit

KYIV, July 11 (Reuters) – Russia launched 28 kamikaze drones at the southern port of Odessa and Kiev early on Tuesday, Ukraine’s military said, just hours before the start of a NATO summit in Lithuania that will focus on how to approach security threats from Moscow.

The Ukrainian Air Force said air defense systems shot down 26 of the Iranian-made Shahed drones launched by Russia. Over Odessa, 22 were shot down and two drones hit an administrative building in the port, the local governor said.

A grain and another terminal near the port of Odessa caught fire, which was quickly extinguished without causing “critical damage” or injuries, Gov. Oleh Kiper said on the Telegram messaging app.

All the drones sent towards kyiv were intercepted, but the debris damaged several houses in the region, the army said.

“The enemy attacked kyiv from the air for the second time this month,” Serhiy Popko, head of kyiv’s military administration, said in a post on the Telegram channel.

Reuters witnesses in the Ukrainian capital heard explosions resembling the sound of air defense systems intercepting targets during the airstrike.

In the Kiev region surrounding the capital, 12 residential houses and one multi-storey building suffered minor damage from falling debris, the region’s military chief Ruslan Kravchenko said on his Facebook page.

No injuries were reported.

The summit in Vilnius, which begins on Tuesday, will be dominated by the fallout from Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, as leaders prepare to approve the first NATO meeting. comprehensive plans since the end of the Cold War to defend against any attack from Moscow.

Russia rebuked the alliance and its main power, the United States, for its support for Ukraine and has warned that kyiv’s possible NATO membership would face a “clear and firm” reaction.

The Russian invasion of its neighbor, now in its 503rd day and with no end in sight, has killed thousands, displaced millions and turned many cities in eastern and southern Ukraine into piles of rubble.

Additional reporting by Lidia Kelly in Melbourne; Written by Lydia Kelly; Edited by Himani Sarkar and Simon Cameron-Moore

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