Russian strike kills seven in Ukraine's coastal Odesa region

A Russian ballistic missile strike killed seven and wounded 15 in Ukraine's Black Sea Odesa region, a local governor said Friday, adding that the attack targeted port infrastructure.

Moscow has stepped up barrages on the important coastal region in recent weeks after President Vladimir Putin threatened retaliation for a slew of Ukrainian strikes on tankers carrying Russian oil.

"The enemy struck the port infrastructure of Odesa region -- seven dead, fifteen wounded," Odesa regional governor Oleg Kiper said on social media.

According to him, "the strike caused a fire in a parking lot of trucks."

In recent weeks, Russia has pummelled Odesa's logistics and energy infrastructure, hitting a bridge on the border with Moldova and cutting electricity and heating to hundreds of thousands of people in freezing temperatures.

The attacks also damaged foreign-flagged civil vessels in regional ports.

Earlier on Friday, Ukraine said it had hit another of Moscow's sanctions-busting "shadow fleet" tankers in neutral waters of the Mediterranean Sea, its first strike in the sea in the nearly four-year war.

Kyiv also struck similar vessels in the Black Sea earlier this month.

Friday's attack comes amid a flurry of diplomacy to end the war, with US, Ukrainian and European officials gathering in Miami for another round of talks.

Putin said in early December that Russia would expand strikes on Ukrainian ports and threatened to completely cut off its access to the sea if it continued attacking tankers.