“This is the first time a double attack has happened in Odesa region,” Maryna Averina, a spokeswoman for the State Emergency Service in Odesa, told CNN.

Hmm.

I’m not totally sure that Russia’s aim is necessarily to kill off rescue workers, especially if this hasn’t been a common practice in the past.

If Russia is doing a bomb damage assessment on the target – which they are presumably going to do if possible – and they didn’t destroy whatever they wanted to destroy with the first shot, they might send a second.

Thing is, Ukraine’s got air defenses that make it suicidal for Russian aircraft to be overhead, so what Russia’s got that can actually manage to get into Ukraine is drones and missiles that take a while to reach the target. If the desired target isn’t destroyed, Russia has to launch a second missile and have it fly all the way out, which is going to take a while. Can’t have an aircraft already overhead just do a second pass or something. And I’d guess that that creates a window where rescue workers can show up.

If one really wants to dick up people being dispatched to the scene – I don’t think that rescue workers are normally a target, but repair workers for military targets are – there are weapons that are designed specifically to target them, deny the area to repair workers and keep it out of use, which will do a better job of that. AFAIK, Russia is not party to any treaties that would prohibit their use, and it doesn’t sound like those are being used.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Delay-action_bomb

A delay-action bomb is an aerial bomb designed to explode some time after impact, with the bomb’s fuzes set to delay the explosion for times ranging from very brief to several weeks.

Longer delays were intended to disrupt salvage and other activities, to spread terror in areas where there could still be live bombs and to attack bomb disposal workers.

Such bombs were used widely by British and American and German[2] forces during World War II.[3] One use was to hamper and delay reconstruction and repair of bombed airfields.

Here’s one such (more-modern) delayed-fuze weapon, which uses submunitions:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/JP233

The JP233, originally known as the Low-Altitude Airfield Attack System (LAAAS), is a British submunition delivery system. It consists of large dispenser pods carrying several hundred submunitions designed to attack runways.[1]

The SG-357, which weighed 26 kilogrammes (57 pounds), was a two-stage munition. The longer, smaller-diameter forward section consists of a cylindrical high-explosive charge with a hole down the centre. The shorter, larger-diameter rear section held a shaped charge. At the front of the munition was a telescopic stand-off fusing system that created the correct detonation distance for the shaped charge. On impact, the extended fuse initiated the shaped charge, creating a metal jet which travelled through the centre of the forward charge element and then penetrated the concrete runway surface to create an underground chamber. The momentum of the cylindrical charge was enough for it to follow down through the hole created by the shaped charge before exploding some distance under the runway surface. This second explosion was intended to produce a crater with significant “heave” at the edge, making repairs much more difficult and time-consuming.[2]

The HB-876 mines would lie scattered on the surface, making rapid repair of the runway very hazardous. The outside of the munition was surrounded by a “coronet” of spring steel strips that were held flat against the sides of the mine. After landing on the surface, a small explosive device would fire and release the coronet springs such that the mine would become “erect” on the surface, with its self-forging fragment warhead pointing vertically upwards. The cylindrical case of the mine was made from dimpled steel and on detonation would spread small steel anti-personnel fragments, rather like a hand-grenade, in all radial directions. They would explode at preset intervals or if disturbed. Standing above the surface on the coronet of spring steel legs, they would tilt toward a bulldozer blade when pushed before detonating and firing the forged fragments toward the vehicle.[2]

With the increasing availability of standoff attack munitions capable of the same mission with little risk to the flight crew and aircraft, and the British entry into the Land Mines Treaty (which declares the HB-876 illegal), the JP233 has been withdrawn from service.

That’s referring to the Ottawa Treaty. Russia isn’t party to that, which means that it’d be legal for them to use such a weapon; I’d assume that if Russia wanted to target workers following up a bomb blast, that they’d use a thing.

googles

Russia does apparently have such a weapon, though it is a gravity bomb. I don’t know if they’ve an existing way to deploy such a thing via missile.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/KMGU

KMGU (Russian: Контейнер малогабаритных грузов унифицированный, Unified Container for Small-sized Load) is a Soviet munitions dispenser similar to the British JP233 and the German MW-1. It can be carried by most Soviet and Russian attack aircraft, including the MiG-23, the MiG-27, the MiG-29, the Su-22, the Su-24, the Su-25, the Su-27, the Su-30, and the Su-34 and the Mi-24, Ka-50 and the Ka-52 attack helicopter. The cylindrical aluminum fuselage is divided into 8 sections, each has its own pneumatically opened doors. It can be filled with:

• 96 (8×12) AO-2,5RT 2.5 kilogram-mass high explosive mines
• 96 (8×12) PTM-1 anti-tank mines
• 156 PFM-1S mines

Russia’s definitely air-deployed PFM-1 mines (the “butterfly mines”) in Ukraine in the past, though I don’t know if they can do so from a missile.

A US weapon in the class:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GATOR_mine_system

The GATOR mine system is a United States military system of air-dropped anti-tank and anti-personnel mines developed in the 1980s to be compatible with existing cluster dispensers. It is used with two dispenser systems—the Navy 230 kg (500 lb) CBU-78/B and the Air Force 450 kg (1,000 lb) CBU-89/B. Additionally the mines are used with the land- and helicopter-based Volcano mine system.

In use the bombs are dropped from aircraft flying at speeds between 370 and 1,300 km/h (200 and 700 kn), and at altitudes of between 100 and 1,200 meters. An FMU-140/B fuze controls the opening of the dispenser at one of 10 predetermined altitudes between 90 m and 900 m using a doppler ranging radar or alternatively a 1.2 second time fuse. Mine arming begins when the dispenser opens with the activation of the mines’ vanadium pentoxide batteries. The circular mines have a rectangular plastic “aeroballistic” adaptor. Once the mines reach the ground they become armed between 1.2 and 10 seconds.

The mines self-destruct after a preset time which can be set to 4 hours, 15 hours or 15 days. Any that do not will become disabled after 40 days when the batteries discharge fully.