Russian strikes kill three in Odesa, hit Poltava air base, Ukraine says

KYIV/ODESA, Ukraine, June 10 (Reuters): Russia fired missiles and drones at targets across Ukraine in the early hours of Saturday, killing three civilians in the Black Sea city of Odesa and striking a military air field in the central Poltava region, Kyiv authorities said.
The attacks, in which a 29-year-old was also killed in the northeast Kharkiv region according to officials, were the latest in a spate of overnight strikes that Russia has intensified as Kyiv sets its sights on a major counter-offensive.
The Air Force said the attacks involved eight ground-launched missiles and 35 strike drones. Air defence units managed to down 20 drones and two cruise missiles, it said.
"As a result of the air fight, debris from one of the drones fell onto a high-rise apartment, causing a fire," the southern military command's spokesperson Natalia Humeniuk said of the attack on Odesa.
Firefighters battled overnight to put out the fire in the 10-storey block in a residential area of the city, footage released by the military showed.
The morning light revealed a gaping crater in the ground several metres wide next to the damaged building and a children's playground, a Reuters photographer said.
Three people were killed including a couple who lived on the eighth floor of the building and a man who had been outside at the time of the attack, authorities said.
At least 27 other people, including three children, were hurt, the emergency services said.
Meanwhile, the White House said on Friday that Russia appeared to be deepening its defence cooperation with Iran and had received hundreds of one-way attack drones that it is using to strike Ukraine.
Citing newly declassified information, the White House said the drones, or Uncrewed Aerial Vehicles (UAVs), were built in Iran, shipped across the Caspian Sea and then used by Russian forces against Ukraine.
"Russia has been using Iranian UAVs in recent weeks to strike Kyiv and terrorize the Ukrainian population, and the Russia-Iran military partnership appears to be deepening," White House spokesman John Kirby said in a statement.
"We are also concerned that Russia is working with Iran to produce Iranian UAVs from inside Russia."