Odesa

Two people were killed when Russian drones hit a residential area in the city of Zaporizhzhia.

And in the Black Sea port of Odesa and the surrounding area, thirty-five people were wounded in what local officials say was a massive attack.

Among the buildings hit was a residential high-rise.

Its upper floors were destroyed.

And Russian attacks in several regions in Ukraine have killed at least eight people and injured dozens of others.

The strikes hit cars, a grocery store, and residential buildings, including this high-rise in Odesa.

This latest attack comes after Russian President Vladimir Putin warned European countries that sending troops to Ukraine would mean war with Russia.

And that comes at the same time as this explosion at a weapons storage plant in Bulgaria, just weeks after another blast at a different weapons depot.

Both of those things can't be true, and over 10 years later, nobody has explained which one is false.

Daria Bulba was born on September 25, 1995, in Odessa, on the Black Sea coast of Ukraine.

She sang, she played guitar, and at 17 she was already modeling locally after training at a school called Art Podium.

She also finished a program at the Odessa College of Hotel Management in 2015, where her specialty was, of all things, law, which seems weird for a hotel management college to me.

By then, she was a working model, and she'd done catalog and magazine work in Italy, Greece, and Turkey, and she'd been signed for a time with Monster Management in Milan.

What's notable is how much she liked Shanghai, and her sister Katerina later said Daria had been to Shanghai three times.

She shared an apartment with other foreign models, including a roommate named Alexandra Morozova and a girl the Chinese press only ever called Nancy.

She was working steadily and living modestly, and the family talked to her almost every day through V-contact and WeChat, a Russian and a Chinese messaging app, respectively.

And I'm just wondering how you reflect on the use of Russian in Ukraine as part of Ukrainian culture.

Like, let's say there's a writer in Odessa, totally Ukrainian person-

Mm-hmm

...

Russian missile and drone strikes in the Odessa region wounded at least 23 people in the initi- in, in the initial report, and that's going to escalate, I'll show you over time, including children hitting a 25-story tower in Odessa and a rehab center in Chernomorsk.

Russia struck, uh, Odesa and Chernomorsk with missiles and drones, 28 people.

This said 23 in the initial report, now up to 28 people injured across the Oblast.

Five-month-old baby among them.

In Odesa, a fire reached 21st to 23rd floors of a 25-story apartment block, and then that rose up to 35 wounded by the fi- like, the last vid- um, the last news report that I saw, 35 people wounded, including that infant.

Two people remain unaccounted for as search and rescue continues.

So here is Caelan, and he was actually there.

A missile just crashed into the building I was sleeping in.

so many different states all over the place, Messianic Music Group.

We were in the former Soviet Union and we even played in Odessa, Ukraine one time, actually two or three nights along with another band, along with Paul Wilbur, a stadium event where there were 40,000 people in the stadium.

The Ukrainian National Orchestra were backing us up and there were fireworks during our performance.

This was nuts.

Coming up, in one of Ukraine's predominantly Russian-speaking cities, a bitter new front has opened in the war with Moscow.

The people of Odessa are being asked to vote to ban the Russian language in arts and culture, a move supporters call decolonisation, and critics warn could hand Vladimir Putin a massive propaganda victory.

Also ahead, the United Nations was created to ensure great powers could never again lead the world into global war.

But as the post 9-11 discussions have shown us, ideological battles are rupturing long-held alliances.

After 40 years of performing, I can just say, this is me.

Stay tuned to hear why Bill Bailey is taking inspiration from the great vaudeville performers of old in his new show, Vaudevillian, later this hour.

More than four years into Ukraine's war, councillors in the predominantly Russian-speaking city of Odessa have been asked to consider a ban on using the Russian language in artistic and cultural events.

Supporters say it's an act of decolonisation.