Ukraine war: Drones target Odesa grain stores near Romania border
A Russian drone strike has hit Ukrainian port facilities at Izmail on the River Danube, a short distance from Nato member state Romania.
A grain warehouse and an elevator for loading grain were damaged.
Almost 40,000 tonnes of grain destined to African countries, China and Israel were damaged, Ukraine said.
Russia began targeting Ukraine’s ports after abandoning a UN deal that enabled the safe grain export between both countries across the Black Sea.
“These are the very ports that have become the foundation of global food security today,” Ukrainian minister Oleksandr Kubrakov said on his Twitter.
Video, filmed from the Romanian side of the Danube roughly 3km (1.9 miles) away, showed an extensive fire raging in the port area of Izmail early on Wednesday.
Romanian President Klaus Iohannis condemned Russia’s continued attacks on Ukrainian infrastructure “in the proximity of Romania” as unacceptable.
Odesa regional leader Oleh Kiper said emergency services were working on the site of the latest Russian attack and there were no reports of any casualties.
President Volodymyr Zelensky said that “unfortunately there has been damage” – and the regional chief posted several images on social media indicating that several structures had been hit.
Ukraine’s defence ministry said an elevator had been damaged. Officials said the Izmail district prosecutor had launched an investigation into a cargo terminal, a warehouse and an elevator that were all damaged, without detailing exactly where in the Odesa region.
Ukraine is one of the world’s major exporters of wheat and corn.
According to data from the UN’s Food and Agriculture Organization, in 2021 Somalia relied on Ukraine and Russia for 90% of its wheat.
More than 50 million people across Somalia, Kenya, Ethiopia and South Sudan are in need of food aid because of successive years of failed rains.
According to the UN, under the grain deal Ukraine shipped 625,000 tonnes of food as humanitarian aid to Afghanistan, Ethiopia, Kenya, Somalia, Sudan and Yemen.
France’s foreign ministry accused Russia of “deliberately putting global food security at risk” following the damage to grain exports at the Ukrainian port.
Last week, Russian drones also attacked grain warehouses in Reni, further up the River Danube and also next to Romanian territory.
President Iohannis said on Wednesday that the attacks so close to Romania were war crimes that further affected Ukraine’s “capacity to transfer their food products towards those in need in the world”.
Russia had earlier attacked the big Black Sea ports of Odesa and Chornomorsk, where authorities said 60,000 tonnes of grain were destroyed.
Source: Ukraine war: Drones target Odesa grain stores near Romania border – BBC News
