Air strikes rocked Ukraine's strategic Black Sea port Odessa early Sunday morning, according to an interior ministry official, after Kyiv had warned that Russia was trying to consolidate its troops in the south.
"Odessa was attacked from the air," Anton Herashchenko, adviser to the interior minister, wrote on his Telegram account.
"Fires were reported in some areas. Some of the missiles were shot down by air defence."
An AFP reporter heard explosions in the southwestern city at around 6:00 am (0300 GMT).
The blasts sent up at least three columns of black smoke with flames visible apparently in an industrial area.
A soldier near the site of one of the strikes said it was likely a rocket or a missile.
The attack comes as Russian forces appeared to be withdrawing from the country's north.
On Friday, Ukraine's President Volodymyr Zelensky warned Russia was consolidating and preparing "powerful strikes" in the south, joining a chorus of Western assessments that Moscow's troops were regrouping.
Odessa, a historic city of around one million people, is Ukraine's largest Black Sea port.
(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)
Russia Lacks Numbers For Major Breakthrough In Ukraine: NATO Commander Ukraine Introduces AI-Generated Spokesperson For Foreign Ministry Ukraine Aid Package Clears Key Procedural Vote In US Senate Over 300 Indian Students Return Home As 105 Bangladeshis Killed In Protests "Jindal Group Executive Showed Porn, Groped Me On Flight": Woman To NDTV Massive Worldwide Microsoft Outage: Flights, Markets, Stock Exchange Down Tesla Halted Some Production Lines Due To Global IT Outage: Report SpiceJet Says Services Up Again After "Resolution" Of Microsoft Outage Zuckerberg "Not Planning" To Endorse Biden Or Trump In US Presidential Polls Track Latest News Live on NDTV.com and get news updates from India and around the world.