A drone attack damaged a grain silo in the Izmail district in the Odesa region, said regional governor Oleh Kiper. Nine trucks caught fire at the site but the blaze was put out quickly.

The attacks followed a Russian missile strike yesterday in which Ukrainian officials said 51 people were killed in a village in northeastern Ukraine during a gathering to mourn a fallen Ukrainian soldier.

In the latest strikes, Ukrainian air defences shot down 25 of the 33 drones launched by Russia from the annexed Crimea peninsular, the air force said in a statement.

The drone strikes targeted the Odesa and Mykolaiv regions in the south, Dnipropetrovsk region in the southeast, central Cherkasy and Zhytomyr regions, and the Kharkiv region in the northeast, the air force said on the Telegram messaging app.

In a separate strike in the city of Kharkiv, 16 people were wounded in addition to the 10-year boy who was killed, regional governor Oleh Synehubov said. An 11-month-old baby was among the injured, he said, and houses and cars were damaged.

Moscow denies deliberately targeting civilians, but many have been killed in attacks that have hit residential areas as well as energy, defence, port, grain, and other facilities.

Russia has intensified attacks on Ukraine’s southern regions, home to Ukraine’s Black Sea and river ports since Moscow quit a grain deal in July that had ensured safe Ukrainian shipments via the Black Sea to help mitigate a global food crisis.

“The air alert in Odesa lasted for three-and-a-half hours,” Kiper said. “The enemy once again targeted the border and port infrastructure of the Izmail district.” The Ukrainian military said that operations at an international ferry checkpoint named “Orlivka” were suspended and vehicles were re-routed following the drone attacks.