By Iryna Nazarchuk and Oleksandr Kozhukhar
ODESA, Ukraine (Reuters) – Five people were injured in Odesa and one of the city’s principal art galleries was damaged in Russian strikes late on Sunday, Ukrainian officials in the Black Sea port said.
“On November 6, the Odesa National Art Museum turns 124 years old,” Oleh Kiper, governor the of the Odesa region, of which the Odesa city is the administrative centre, said on the Telegram messaging app. “On the eve of November 6, the Russians ‘congratulated’ our architectural monument with a missile that hit nearby.”
The walls of the building were damaged, some windows and glass were broken, he said.
The museum, in one of the oldest palaces of Odesa, housed before the war more than 10,000 pieces of art, including paintings by some of the best-known Russian and Ukrainian artists of late 19th and early 20th century.
The Odesa city council published a video showing blown out windows and debris inside what it said was the Odesa National Art Museum, where paintings hang on walls.
“The situation is under control, but everything will have to be examined thoroughly so that we are sure that everything is fine,” Odesa Mayor Henadii Trukhanov told the Suspilne media outlet.
On the street near the museum, the attack left a several-meter hole. According to the city authorities, one person was injured there.
Kiper said that all five of the injured, from throughout the city, were hospitalised.
(Reporting by Iryna Nazarchuk in Odesa and Oleskandr Kozhukhar in Kyiv; Writing by Lidia Kelly in Melbourne. Editing by Gerry Doyle)
