Overnight missile strikes on a residential tower and a recreational centre in a coastal town southwest of the Black Sea port city of Odessa early on Friday killed at least 19 and injured dozens of others, Ukrainian officials said.

One of the missiles hit a nine-storey residential tower in Bilhorod-Dnistrovskyi, about 80km southwest of Odessa, killing 16 and injuring at least 37, according to Ukraine’s state emergency service. Another hit a recreational centre, where three died and one was injured, officials said.

Rescuers completed the search for bodies at the tower, which was home to more than 100 people and which was destroyed on one side, according to the regional military administration.

They were still going through the rubble of the recreational centre, officials said. The missiles struck around 1am (local time). The details of the missile attacks could not immediately be verified. The attacks came as Russian troops withdrew from Snake Island in the Black Sea, about 32km off Ukraine’s southern coast, after repeated assaults by Ukrainian forces.

The withdrawal was expected to undermine Russia’s control of vital grain shipping lanes from Odessa. Odessa has long been coveted by President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia, whose forces have continued to display a willingness to target civilians during the war. Previous Russian targets have included a theatre, a maternity hospital and people waiting in line for bread.

On Monday, a Russian missile attack struck a shopping mall in the industrial city of Kremenchuk in central Ukraine, killing at least 18 people. A Group of 7 leaders meeting in Germany called the mall attack a “war crime” in a statement.

In the war’s early weeks, Odessa was largely spared the high-casualty attacks on civilians suffered by other Ukrainian cities. Efforts by Russian forces to march westward along the coastline and capture the city were hindered by Ukrainian resistance and logistical issues. But in April, at least eight people were killed when two cruise missiles struck a residential neighborhood on the outskirts of the city, Ukrainian officials said. Later that month, another missile strike damaged the runway at Odessa’s airport and rendered unusable, according to a spokeswoman for the Ukrainian military’s southern command.

New York Times News Service