Three killed, at least 13 injured in Russia's overnight missile strike on Odesa

Three people were killed and at least 13 were injured after Russia launched a missile attack at the southern city of Odesa overnight on June 14, Ukraine's Southern Command reported in a post on Facebook.

The command said that according to updated information, Russia launched four Kalibr cruise missiles at the city. In an earlier post, the command said that two of the missiles were shot down by Ukrainian air defenses.

One of the missiles hit the warehouse of a retail chain, causing a large fire and killing three of the warehouse's employees, the command reported. Seven people were wounded.

Missile debris also damaged a business center, an educational institution, a residential complex, and shops in the city center, injuring six people, according to preliminary estimates.

The command also said that people may still be trapped under the rubble at the sites of the attacks.

Explosions were heard in Odesa at around 2:30 a.m. local time on July 14, after which fire and large amounts of smoke were reported.

A Russian missile attack on Kryvyi Rih on June 13 killed 11 people and injured 36 others. More than 70 residential buildings were also damaged as a result of the missile strike, as well as three schools, three buildings of two other educational institutions, and a dormitory.

Stoltenberg: We Don't Yet Know If Counteroffensive Will Be Turning Point in War

NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg believes that it is still too early to draw conclusions about whether the Ukrainian counteroffensive will be a turning point in the war.

"These are still early days of the counteroffensive, and we don't know if it will be a turning point in the war," he said at a press conference on Wednesday ahead of the NATO defence ministers meeting, as reported by the correspondent of "European Pravda" from Brussels.

However, he added that Ukrainian forces are advancing and liberating more occupied territories. According to Stoltenberg, Ukraine's progress on the battlefield will strengthen Kyiv's negotiating position.

"The more land the Ukrainians are able to liberate, the stronger their hand will be at the negotiating table, and the more likely it is that Russian President Vladimir Putin will understand that he will never win and he cannot engage in negotiations for a just peace," the Secretary-General added.

According to him, Ukraine's progress demonstrates that NATO support makes a real difference on the battlefield.

Earlier, Stoltenberg stated that the Ukrainian forces' advance into the occupied territories in eastern and southern Ukraine, which are under Russian occupation, has shown initial signs of success.

Belarus Starts Delivering Russian Nuclear Weapons

Self-proclaimed Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko has said his country has started taking delivery of Russian tactical nuclear weapons, some of which he said were three times more powerful than the atomic bombs the US dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki in 1945.

According to Reuters, the deployment is Moscow's first move of such warheads – shorter-range less powerful nuclear weapons that could potentially be used on the battlefield – outside Russia since the fall of the Soviet Union.

"We have missiles and bombs that we have received from Russia," Lukashenko said in an interview with the Rossiya-1 Russian state TV channel.

"The bombs are three times more powerful than those (dropped on) Hiroshima and Nagasaki," he declared.

Russian President Vladimir Putin stated on Friday that Russia, which will retain control of the tactical nuclear weapons, would start deploying them in Belarus after special storage facilities to house them were made ready.

Lukashenko, a close ally of Putin, told Russian state TV in the interview, released late on Tuesday, that his country had numerous nuclear storage facilities left over from the Soviet era and had restored five or six of them.

He played down the idea that Russian control of the weapons impeded using them quickly if he felt such a move was necessary, saying he and Putin could pick up the phone to each other "at any moment".

Earlier on Tuesday, he had said separately that the Russian tactical nuclear weapons would be physically deployed on the territory of Belarus "in several days" and that he had the facilities to host longer-range missiles too if ever needed.

Lukashenko, who has allowed his country to be used by Russian forces attacking Ukraine as part of what Moscow calls its "special military operation", says the nuclear deployment will act as a deterrent against potential aggressors.

Previously, Alexander Lukashenko stated that the placement of Russian tactical nuclear weapons on Belarusian territory was his demand to the Russian Federation.

On May 25, the defense ministers of Russia and Belarus signed documents on placing tactical nuclear weapons in Belarus. On the same day, Lukashenko announced that Russian nuclear weapons had already begun to be delivered to Belarus.