Russia attacked the port of Izmail on the Danube, 15 kilometers from Tulcea, on Wednesday morning. An attack with Russian explosive drones hit port infrastructure and caused fires in the Odessa region, in southern Ukraine. Also, the capital Kyiv was targeted by a massive drone attack, but all were shot down, causing some material damage.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said the Russians’ latest drone strike on Odesa port infrastructure was an attack on “global food security”. He asked the international community to intervene, writes CNN. “Russian terrorists have once again attacked ports, grain and global food security. The world must react. Russia can and must be stopped,” Zelenskiy said in a Telegram post on Wednesday.
Russian drones attacked port and grain storage facilities in the southern Ukrainian coastal Odesa region on Wednesday morning, setting some of them on fire, regional governor Oleh Kiper wrote on the Telegram messaging application, Reuters reports.
“During the night, the enemy directed attack drones towards the south of Odesa region. Following the attack, fires broke out at the port facilities and industrial infrastructure in the region, and an elevator was damaged. All the relevant services are working on the spot”, announced Oleh Kiper. No victims were reported, the governor said.
Ukrainian media reported that the drones arrived from the Black Sea and then moved west along the Danube River to Izmail, a key port from which Ukrainian grain is transported by barge to the Romanian port of Constanta on the Black Sea to be forwarded.
For the first time since the grain agreement expired, several foreign cargo ships had arrived in the Black Sea port of Izmail on Sunday, Ukrainian media reported.
Another Russian attack, at the end of July, targeted the Izmail port terminal in the Danube Delta, destroying a grain warehouse.
Russia has stepped up its attacks on Ukrainian agricultural and port infrastructure after it refused to extend the Black Sea Grain Agreement that allowed Ukrainian exports.
Kyivv attacked overnight with at least ten drones
Another major drone attack targeted the capital Kyiv overnight.
According to the head of the capital’s military administration, Serghei Popko, groups of “Shahed” drones, coming from several directions, entered the sky of the capital simultaneously. “All targets – more than ten drones – were detected and destroyed in time,” he said on Telegram. However, debris from the downed drones fell in the Solomianski, Golosiivski and Sviatosinski districts. “There is damage in non-residential spaces and on the surface of the roads, but there are no serious destructions or fires”, stated the military administration.
The mayor of Kyiv, Vitali Klitsiko, confirmed that fragments of drones fell in several neighborhoods and that there was material damage. “There are no dead or injured in the capital,” he also confirmed on Telegram. In the Golosiivski district, debris fell on a playground and a non-residential building, according to the military administration.
A day earlier, Russia had said it had foiled a wave of air and sea drone attacks against Moscow, Crimea and the Russian fleet in the Black Sea. A skyscraper in the capital’s financial district has been hit for the second time in just a few days. Attacks against the Russian capital and its surroundings have multiplied since the spring, with an incursion even targeting the Kremlin in May.
Romanian President retorts to attack near Romania
Klaus Iohannis reacted on Wednesday to the Russian drone attack in the Ukrainian port of Izmail, located 15 kilometers from Tulcea. Romania’s president says the Russian attack is a “war crime” and “affects Ukraine’s ability to transfer food products to those who need them around the world.”