Harry Potter seems to have indirectly been dragged into the Russia-Ukraine war. A Russian missile attack on the port city of Odesa killed five people and injured 30. But the missile also hit an educational institution, which locals have referred to as “Harry Potter castle.” This is because they believe that it resembles Edinburgh Castle, the castle that is said to have inspired J.K. Rowling’s creation of Hogwarts.
According to a post on X by Ukraine’s Prosecutor General Andriy Kostin, “five people died, more than 30 were injured. Among the injured are two children and a pregnant woman. Five wounded are in extremely serious condition.” Providing details of the incident, he added. “The strike was carried out by an Iskander ballistic missile with a cluster warhead. It is an indiscriminate weapon, the use of which can lead to significant casualties among the civilian population. In a radius of 1.5 km from the site of the shelling, metal fragments and fragments of the rocket were recovered.”
Nearly 20 residential buildings and infrastructure facilities were also damaged from the strike.
Commenting on the attack, US ambassador to Ukraine Bridget A. Brink stated on X that Moscow was attacking “Odessa with a ballistic missile and cluster munition, killing several people and wounding many others, including children. The brutal and relentless nature of Russia’s war cannot be overstated, as these attacks on civilians are continuing every day.”
The use, transfer, and production of cluster munitions is prohibited by an international treaty known as the Convention on Cluster Munitions. However, neither Russia, Ukraine – and the United States – has signed the convention. Cluster munitions have been used by both sides, and have been transferred to Ukraine by the United States as part of a military aid package last year.
Russia has also claimed that Ukraine had used US-supplied Army Tactical Missile Systems — known as ATACMS — armed with wide-spreading cluster munitions. According to Russian media reports, these missiles were shipped in secret last week by the US to Ukraine, to attack a Russian military airfield in Crimea. Russian officials claim that they intercepted these missiles, but so far there has been no independent verification of these claims.
The new weapon supplies to Ukraine come after President Biden was able to get a war aid package where $61 billion will go to Kyiv. Recently, Nato Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg also visited Kyiv where he admitted that the alliance had not fulfilled its war commitments to Ukraine but would make up for it now.
(With inputs from Reuters)
(Edited by Ashwin Ahmad)
