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Natalia Zinets & Maria Starkova & Alessandra Prentice & Ryan Fahey

At least eight killed including 3-month old baby in brutal Odessa missile strike

A three-month-old baby was among at least five people slaughtered in a Russian missile strike today.

At least eight Ukrainians were killed and 18 injured in a missile strike on Ukraine's southern port city of Odessa on Saturday, the President's chief of staff Andriy Yermak said in an online post.

Ukraine's southern air command had earlier said that two missiles struck a military facility and two residential buildings in Odessa.

The death toll could not be independently verified.

The last big strike on or near Odessa was in early April.

"The only aim of Russian missile strikes on Odessa is terror," Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba wrote on Twitter.

Russia has denied targeting civilians in its "special military operation" that began on February 24.

Meanwhile, in Mariupol Russia resumed its assault on the last Ukrainian defenders holed up in a giant steel works, a Ukrainian official said on Saturday.

Firefighters extinguish a blaze after a missile strike in Odesa, Ukraine today (via REUTERS)

The attack comes just days after Moscow declared victory in the southern port city and said its forces did not need to take the plant.

Russian forces were hitting the Azovstal complex with air strikes and trying to storm it, presidential adviser Oleksiy Arestovych said, adding "the enemy is trying to strangle the final resistance of Mariupol's defenders".

The biggest battle of the conflict has raged for weeks as Russia seeks to capture a city seen as vital to its attempts to link the eastern Donbas region with Crimea, the Black Sea peninsula that Moscow seized in 2014.

A residential building damaged by a missile strike amid Russia's invasion of Ukraine, in Odesa today (REUTERS)

A Russian general, Rustam Minnekayev, said on Friday Moscow wanted control of the whole of southern Ukraine, not just Donbas.

Ukraine said the comments indicated Russia had wider goals than its declared aim of demilitarising and "de-nazifying" the country.

Kyiv and the West Ukraine call the invasion an unjustified war of aggression.

General Minnekayev, deputy commander of Russia's central military district, was quoted by Russian news agencies as saying full control over southern Ukraine would give Russia access to Transdniestria, a breakaway Russian-occupied part of Moldova.

President Zelenskiy said after Minnekayev's comments that Russia's invasion was just the beginning and that Moscow has designs on other countries.

"We are the first in line. And who will come next?" he said in a video address late on Friday.

Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov declined comment on whether Russia had expanded its goals.

A woman holds a dog outside the razed tower block (REUTERS)

Zelenskiy also said Ukraine's allies were finally delivering weapons Kyiv has asked for.

U.S. President Joe Biden said on Thursday he had authorised a further $800 million in military aid for Ukraine, including heavy artillery, ammunition and drones.

Canada said on Friday it had provided more heavy artillery to Ukraine.

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