Vladimir Putin’s military attacked a key inland port in Ukraine early on Wednesday, seeking to throttle exports as the price of grain jumped on global markets.
Ukraine’s defence ministry said a grain silo and other infrastructure were damaged at the Danube port of Izmail in the Odesa region.
The port, across the river from Nato member Romania, has served as the main alternative route for grain exports since Russia reimposed its de facto blockade of Ukraine’s Black Sea ports in mid-July.
Chicago wheat prices jumped four per cent following today’s attack, with traders again worried about a hit to global supplies from driving Ukraine, one of the world’s leading food exporters, off the market.
As the destruction from the drone strikes was being assessed, Ukraine’s president Volodymyr Zelensky stated: “Russian terrorists have once again targeted ports, grain facilities and global food security. The world must respond.”
Ukraine’s Danube river ports accounted for around a quarter of grain exports before Russia pulled out of the Black Sea deal last month, with supplies loaded onto barges and shipped to Romania’s Black Sea port of Constanta for shipment onwards.
On Sunday, Ukrainian media reported several foreign cargo ships had arrived directly at Izmail from the Black Sea, for the first time since the expiration of the grain deal, opening a potential breach in Russia’s newly-restored blockade. Russian drones had already targeted Izmail once before the latest attack, late last month, destroying a grain warehouse.
Putin’s regime has relentlessly attacked Ukrainian agricultural and port infrastructure for more than two weeks since refusing to extend the agreement that had lifted its war-time blockade of Ukrainian ports last year.
Moscow has demanded better terms for its own food and fertiliser exports, which are already exempt from some international financial sanctions. Ukrainian officials have said Moscow has hit 26 port facilities, five civilian vessels and 180,000 tonnes of grain in nine days of strikes.
Moscow has said such attacks are retribution for a Ukrainian strike on a bridge that Russia uses to supply its occupation army in southern Ukraine.
The United Nations has warned of a potential food crisis and hunger in the world’s poorest countries as a result of Russia’s decision to abandon the deal, brokered by the UN and Turkey.
Meanwhile, Ukraine’s air force reported that Russia had launched multiple drone attacks on Kyiv and the surrounding region overnight. Air defences shot down 23 drones, but debris from downed drones damaged several buildings in the capital and the region, it said.
The air strikes come after several drone attacks on Moscow in recent days. Two civilians were wounded in shelling of the city of Kherson during the night, regional governor Oleksandr Prokudin said today.
