Ukrainian officials said at least 16 people had been killed at the apartment block in the village of Serhiivka, and another three, including one child, in strikes that hit nearby holiday resorts.
One section of a nine-storey apartment block near Odesa was completely destroyed by a missile that struck at 1:00 a.m. The walls and windows of a neighboring, 14-story apartment block had also been damaged by the blast wave.
"We came here to the site, assessed the situation together with emergency workers and locals, and together helped those who survived. And those who unfortunately died. We helped to carry them away,” said Oleksandr Abramov, who lives nearby and had rushed to the scene when he heard the blast.
The Kremlin issued a boilerplate denial that it targeted civilians: "I would like to remind you of the president's words that the Russian Armed Forces do not work with civilian targets," Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov told reporters.
The strike on Odesa, using long-range missiles, comes after days in which Russia has escalated such attacks deep in Ukraine, far from front lines, including an attack on Monday that killed at least 19 people in a crowded shopping mall.
Moscow says it is striking military targets. Kyiv calls the attacks war crimes. A Ukrainian general said on Thursday that Russia may be trying to hit military targets but is killing civilians by firing inaccurate, obsolete missiles into populous areas.
A day earlier, Russia pulled its troops off Snake Island, a desolate but strategically important outcrop that it seized on the war's first day and has used to control the northwestern Black Sea, where it has blockaded Odesa and other ports.
In his nightly video address, President Volodymyr Zelenskiy hailed what he described as a strategic victory.
"It does not yet guarantee security. It does not yet ensure that the enemy will not come back," he said. "But this significantly limits the actions of the occupiers. Step by step, we will push them back from our sea, our land and our sky."
