Mykolaiv was hit by a Russian strike, at least seven people were killed

At least seven people were killed on Tuesday in a Russian raid that partially destroyed the regional administration building in Mykolaiv, a Ukrainian city near Odessa that has seen a respite from the bombing in recent days.

AFP journalists saw two bodies being pulled out from the rubble of the building, the middle of which had partially collapsed after the strike.

District Governor Vitaly Kim said on Facebook that aid workers were searching for “eight civilians and three soldiers” under the rubble. He said that most of those inside at the time of the strike were unharmed.

Mr. Kim said that “half of the building was destroyed” and his office was damaged. He said sarcastically that the Russians “understood that they could not take Mykolaev and decided to salute me, to salute us all.”

AFP reporters saw shards of glass near the veterans’ office on the corner of a nearby street.

“I was having breakfast in my apartment,” Donald, a 69-year-old retired Canadian who lives in Ukraine, told AFP. And he continued, “I heard a whistling, then a thumping rumble and windows chanted.”

“This is scary. We were lucky here in Mykolaiv, we did not have as many explosions in the city center ”as in other cities, he added.