With a barrage of missiles and drones, Russia attacked Odesa port facilities and caused damage to critical infrastructure from this city, one of the three Ukrainian ports that were included in the grain export agreement that Moscow terminated on Monday.
“Last night Odesa was attacked with six Kalibr missiles from the Black Sea,” the representative of the region’s Military Administration, Sergui Bratchuk, reported on Tuesday, explaining that all the missiles were shot down by Ukrainian anti-aircraft defenses.
Russia reported shortly after that it had bombed facilities in the port of Odessa where allegedly “terrorist acts” against the country were being prepared and water drones were being manufactured, such as the two used by Ukraine on Monday in the attack on the Crimean bridge, a key bridge. in the region annexed by Russia in 2014.
“Tonight the Russian Armed Forces launched a retaliatory group attack using sea-launched high-precision weons against facilities where terrorist acts against Russia were being prepared by drones, as well as against a site at a shipyard near the city of Odessa where the maritime drones were manufactured,” the Russian Defense Ministry said.
The six missiles and 25 drones were shot down by anti-aircraft defenses in the Odessa region and other southern areas, but their remains and the shock waves damaged some port facilities and a few residential buildings, according to the authorities. An elderly man was injured in his house.
Russia said the grain export decision was unrelated to Monday’s attack on a major bridge between Moscow-annexed Crimea and Russia, which the Kremlin blamed on Ukrainian water drones.
Ukrainian authorities stopped short of directly claiming responsibility, as they have in similar attacks in the past, although the country’s main security agency peared tacitly admit who had played a role in the attack.
“Reprisal”
Russia described Tuesday’s attacks on the Black Sea coast as “retaliation” for the incident on the bridge.
The Russian Defense Ministry said it had used sea-launched precision weons against Ukrainian installations near Odessa and Mykolaiv, a coastal city about 50 kilometers to the northeast.
The Russian military destroyed facilities involved in “terrorist attacks” against Russia with drones, including a shipyard facility near Odessa that manufactured them, the ministry said, as well as Ukrainian fuel depots.
Andriy Yermak, head of the Ukrainian presidential office, said the attack showed the Kremlin is willing to endanger the lives of millions of people around the world who need Ukrainian grain exports.
Hunger is a growing threat in Africa, the Middle East and Asia, and high food prices have pushed more people into poverty.
“The world must realize that the goal of the Russian Federation is starvation and killing people,” Yermak said. “They need waves of refugees. They want to weaken the West with this.”
The United Nations and Ukraine’s Western allies condemned Moscow for freezing the Black Sea Grain Initiative, saying it put many lives at risk.
The grain agreement and Moscow’s demands
The Kremlin said the deal would remain on hold until Moscow’s demands that restrictions on exports of Russian food and fertilizer be lifted are met.
The Russian Defense Ministry also said its forces had thwarted a Ukrainian attack on occupied Crimea with 28 drones.
The Ministry said that 17 attack drones had been shot down with anti-aircraft defenses and 11 others crashed after being intercepted by electronic means. There were no damages or casualties, the ministry added.
The alleged attack came a day after the Kremlin accused Ukraine of attacking a bridge in Crimea that connects the Moscow-annexed peninsula with the Russian mainland, and which is a major supply route for Kremlin forces in the war. .
Also on Tuesday, satellite images from Planet Labs C analyzed by Associated Press They showed a long convoy of vehicles arriving at a formerly abandoned military base in Belarus, which local authorities offered to Russian military contractor Wagner following their brief mutiny against Russian officials last month.
The photos, taken on Monday, showed a long line of vehicles leaving a highway at the base near the Belarusian town of Osipovichi, some 75 kilometers northwest of the cital Minsk.
Belaruski Hajun, a Belarusian activist group that monitors troop movements in the country, said a convoy of more than 100 vehicles flying Russian flags and Wagner insignia had entered the country headed for the camp.
The group said it was the third Wagner convoy to enter the country since the week.
Source: AP and EFE
BC
Source: Clarin
