Sharjah24 - Reuters: Russian missiles hit an apartment building and a resort near Ukraine's Black Sea port of Odesa on Friday, killing at least 17 people and wounding dozens, Ukrainian authorities said.

Thousands of civilians have been killed since Russia invaded Ukraine on Feb. 24 in what Ukraine says is an unprovoked war of aggression. Russia denies targeting civilians and says it hits only military infrastructure in what it calls a "special operation" to root out dangerous nationalists.

With its ground forces concentrated in Ukraine's eastern industrial region of Donbas, Russia has more than doubled the number of missile strikes around the country in the past two weeks, using inaccurate Soviet-era missiles for more than half of the attacks, according to a Ukrainian brigadier general.

One missile struck a nine-story building in the town of Bilhorod-Dnistrovskyi at about 1 a.m. (2200 GMT Thursday), the Ukrainian emergencies ministry said. It also caused a fire in an attached store building.

Serhiy Bratchuk, spokesperson for the Odesa regional administration, told Ukrainian state television a rescue operation was under way as some people were buried under rubble after part of the building collapsed.