As Russia resumed its blockade of ships carrying food from Ukraine, its military bombed Odesa and a neighboring port late Tuesday and early Wednesday — specifically targeting its ability to export grain, Ukrainian officials said.
Hours later, the Russian Defense Ministry issued a warning to ship operators and other nations, indicating that any attempt to bypass the blockade would be viewed as an act of war.
As of midnight, “all vessels bound for Ukrainian ports on the Black Sea are considered potential carriers of military cargo,” it said in a statement. “Accordingly, the flag countries of such vessels are considered to be involved in the Ukrainian conflict on the side of the Kyiv regime.” Parts of the Black Sea in international waters have also been “declared temporarily dangerous for navigation,” the ministry added.
In an attempt to extend Ukraine’s suffering to the rest of the world, Ukrainian officials accused Russia of using food as leverage in the war.
“The night strike hit a significant part of the grain export infrastructure of the port of Chornomorsk,” south of Odesa, Ukraine’s Agriculture Minister Mykola Solsky said in a statement, adding that experts estimated it would take at least a year to repair the damage. In Chornomorsk, south of Odessa, “60,000 tons of grain were also destroyed, which should have been loaded on a large tonnage ship” and shipped two months ago, he said.
Moscow on Monday pulled out of a UN-brokered deal that allowed Ukraine to export grain across the Black Sea last year, helping to alleviate global shortages and price spikes. The Russian navy has prevented all other ships from entering or leaving Ukrainian ports, and Russian authorities have inspected grain ships to ensure they are not carrying military equipment.
“Every Russian missile is a blow not only to Ukraine, but to everyone in the world who wants a normal and safe life,” Mr Zelensky said on the Telegram messaging app on Wednesday.
Russian forces fired at least 30 cruise missiles and 32 attack drones into Ukraine overnight, primarily from Black Sea vessels, Ukraine’s air force said, adding that Ukrainian forces intercepted 14 missiles and 23 drones. It was the second straight night of attacks focused on Odessa, Ukraine’s largest port and other shipping hubs.
“This is a hellish night,” Serhii Brachuk, a spokesman for the Odesa regional military administration, said in a video message posted on social media. He called the attack “very powerful, really massive” and said it could be the biggest attack on the city since Russia’s full-scale offensive began.
On Tuesday, Moscow denied that the previous night’s airstrikes were solely related to the suspended grain deal, calling it a “massive retaliatory strike” on facilities used to make attack drones, particularly the naval drones used in Monday’s attack on a bridge linking Russia to the Russian-occupied Crimean peninsula.
In Wednesday morning’s bombing, blast waves from an intercepted missile damaged several buildings and injured civilians, according to the Ukrainian military. Port infrastructure, including a grain and oil terminal, tanks and loading equipment, were damaged, the military said, and tobacco and fireworks warehouses were also damaged. The city government of Odessa said 10 people, including a 9-year-old boy, needed medical help.
Drones shot down by anti-aircraft gunners lit up the night sky like a deadly fireworks display as families huddled in corridors and bathrooms. At resort hotels along the harbor, guests were rushed to shelter through kitchens and past sun loungers.
A missile sailed past cranes and warehouses in the shipyard and hit the grave of Irina Pustovarov’s father. After the sun rose, she went to check the cemetery, but had to wait for a bomb disposal technician to make sure there were no unexploded ordnance. Even the dead, the 19-year-old said, tears streaming down her face, cannot rest in peace in Ukraine.
Russia launched a wave of drones in Ukraine’s capital Kyiv on Wednesday, but all were destroyed by the city’s air defenses, Serhii Popko, head of the city’s military administration, said.
In Crimea, a large fire at a military training ground prompted the evacuation of at least 2,000 residents and the closure of a highway, according to Sergei Aksyonov, the Russia-appointed head of Crimea. It was not immediately clear whether the fire was caused by a Ukrainian attack.
Russia’s ability to hit critical infrastructure reflects the patchy nature of Ukraine’s air defenses, which are dense around Kyiv and a few other locations, but sparse elsewhere.
“We can cover Odesa ports, Kyiv region, Dnipro, Lviv,” Ukrainian Air Force spokesman Yuriy Ihnat said on Ukrainian television. “But we cannot block all directions of missiles flying into Ukraine.”
Before the war, Ukraine and Russia were among the world’s largest exporters of grain, cooking oil and fertilizers and were critical suppliers, especially to parts of Africa and the Middle East. Along with Russia’s blockade of Ukraine and Western sanctions against Russia, those exports collapsed early last year, worsening the global deficit, sending prices soaring and raising fears of famine.
A grain deal in July 2022 allowed Ukrainian shipments to resume, and since then the country has exported about 33 million tons of grain by sea, the United Nations said. Ukraine increased exports by rail, truck and river barge.
The deal also includes measures to ease Russian agricultural exports, but the Kremlin has often complained that the measures are insufficient.
On Monday, Moscow made good on repeated threats to pull out of the deal. UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said he was “deeply disappointed” by the decision.
Chicago wheat futures, the global benchmark, rose 9 percent on Wednesday after Russia’s statement, their biggest percentage gain since the war broke out in February last year. But with global supplies more plentiful than last year, prices remain below levels reached when the war first began.
On Wednesday, the United States said it would send $1.3 billion in financial aid to Kyiv to buy new military equipment and munitions, including four additional air defense missile systems jointly manufactured by the United States and Norway called NASAMS; more 152-millimeter artillery shells for Ukraine’s old Soviet-era howitzers; anti-tank missiles; Attack drones and equipment to clear landmines.
More ammunition and mine clearance are among the most pressing needs of the Ukrainian military in its counteroffensive, which has so far gained little ground.
But away from the battlefield, there were signs of vulnerability for Moscow.
Kremlin President Vladimir V. Putin has announced he will not personally attend a diplomatic summit in South Africa next month, allowing the host nation to avoid a tough decision on whether to arrest the Russian leader, who is the subject of an international warrant on war crimes charges.
And, speaking at a Politico event in Prague, Richard Moore, the head of Britain’s MI6 intelligence agency, said in a rare public appearance that Mr Putin had “cut a deal to save his own skin” and that the Wagner mercenary group and its leader Yevgeny V. Prigogine said last month that he had ended the rebellion.
“I think he probably feels under some pressure,” Mr. Moore said. Mr Putin was speaking at the British Ambassador’s residence in the Czech capital. “Prygozhin was his creature, completely created by Putin, and he turned on him.”
Mark Santora Reported from Odessa, Ukraine Matthew Mpok Big From London and Joe Rennison From New York. The report was contributed John Ismay Washington and John Eligon From Johannesburg.
