Rescue operations end in Odesa with 12 killed, including 5 children, after Russian drone attack.

Search and rescue operations at an apartment building hit in a March 2 Russian drone attack that killed 12 civilians, including five children, concluded at around 9 p.m. local time on March 3, according to a Facebook post by the Internal Affairs Ministry. "While we beat occupiers at the front, they continue to fight civilians, they are fighting children," the ministry wrote in its Facebook post. The attack occurred in the early hours of March 2 when a Russian drone hit a residential building, destroying 18 apartments.

Children killed in the attack continued to be discovered under the rubble of the apartment building throughout the day. The children killed in the attack included a 4-month-old, 7-month-old, 3-year-old, and an 8-year-old girl and her brother who was about to turn 10 in July, according to a Telegram post by Odesa Oblast governor Oleh Kiper. The drone reportedly struck the ninth floor of a high-rise residential building.

Many nearby apartments were also left without heat as a result of the attack. Drone attacks are a daily occurrence in Ukraine, affecting various regions across the country. At least 500 children have been killed in Ukraine since the 2022 Russian invasion and more than a thousand have been injured, the Prosecutor General's office reported in October.

Two children killed in Russian attack found dead under rubble in Odesa

The bodies of a brother and sister, aged 10 and eight, killed in Russia's March 2 attack on Odesa were found under the rubble of an apartment building hit by a drone, Governor Oleh Kiper said in the evening of March 3.