Russia launches drone strike on Ukrainian port near border with Romania in three-hour barrage that risked provoking a global food crisis and dragging NATO into war
- Ukraine said it had destroyed 22 Russian drones on the southern Odesa region
Russian drones struck a Ukrainian port near the border with Romania in a three-hour overnight barrage that risked provoking a global food crisis and potentially dragging NATO into the war.
Ukraine said today that it had destroyed 22 Russian drones out of 25 launched on the southern Odesa region, as Moscow said it hit the Danube port of Reni.
Russia has been targeting Ukrainian port infrastructure in the Odesa region for weeks, after exiting a deal that allowed safe passage for ships carrying grain from Ukrainian ports.
Ukraine’s Air Force wrote on Telegram: ‘On the night of September 3, 2023, the Russian occupiers launched several waves of attacks by ‘Shahed-136/131′ UAVs from the south and southeast.’
Ukrainian prosecutors said some of the drones hit the Danube area, noting that at least two people were wounded.
A firefighter works at a site which was hit during Russia’s drone attacks in Odesa region, Ukraine September 3, 202
A firefighter works at a site which was hit during Russia’s drone attacks in Odesa region, Ukraine September 3, 2023
A firefighter works at a site which was hit during Russia’s drone attacks in Odesa region, Ukraine September 3, 2023
One video posted on social media shows a large nighttime explosion while in another a thick haze or orange smoke can be seen around a flaming port building with fiery cinders floating down from the sky.
The Russian army said it had targeted ‘fuel storage facilities’ in Reni, across the Danube river from NATO and EU member Romania.
It is one of Ukraine’s two major ports on the Danube, along with Izmail, and both have been repeatedly attacked by Russian drones in recent weeks.
‘Today at night, the Russian army carried out a group drone strike on fuel storage facilities used to supply military equipment of the Armed Forces of Ukraine in the port of Reni, in the Odesa region,’ the army said. ‘All designated targets were hit.’
Romania’s defence ministry on Sunday strongly condemned repeated Russian attacks on Ukraine’s Danube infrastructure close to its border as ‘unjustified’ following the latest overnight drone strikes in the southern Odesa region.
The ministry said it ‘reiterates in the strongest terms that these attacks against civilian targets and infrastructure in Ukraine are unjustified and in deep contradiction with the rules of international humanitarian law’.
‘At no time did the means of attack used by the Russian Federation generate any direct military threat to the national territory or territorial waters of Romania,’ it added in a statement.
Bucharest has condemned previous Russian attacks on the ports of Reni and Izmail.
Russian President Vladimir Putin, left, and Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov
A Ukrainian self-propelled artillery system fires towards the Russian positions at the front line near Bakhmut, Donetsk region, Ukraine, Friday, Sept. 1, 2023
‘Russian terrorists continue to attack port infrastructure in the hope of provoking a food crisis and famine in the world,’ the Ukrainian president’s chief of staff Andriy Yermak wrote on Telegram.
He posted a photo of a firefighter directing water at the burning ruins of concrete structures.
The Black Sea grain deal, reached in July 2022, aimed to alleviate a global food crisis.
The Danube has become Ukraine’s main route for exporting grain since July, when Russia quit the U.N. and Turkey-brokered deal that had given safe passage to Kyiv’s exports of grains, oilseeds and vegetables oils via the Black Sea.
READ MORE: Putin’s Russia scrambles to draft in mercenaries from Armenia and Kazakhstan to plug gaps in troop numbers fighting in Ukraine
A Ukrainian soldier fires a mortar towards the Russian positions near Bakhmut, Donetsk region, Ukraine, on September 2, 2023
The interruption to Ukraine’s exports after the outbreak of war in February last year pushed global food prices to record highs.
Russia has complained that under the deal its own food and fertiliser exports faced obstacles and that not enough Ukrainian grain was going to countries in need.
Last month the first civilian cargo ship sailing through the Black Sea from Ukraine arrived in Istanbul in defiance of the Russian blockade.
Zelensky said on Saturday that two more vessels had passed through the country’s ‘temporary Black Sea grain corridor’.
The attack on the Reni seaport comes a day before Putin is due to meet with his Turkish counterpart Recep Tayyip Erdogan to discuss the resumption of food shipments from Ukraine under the Black Sea grain agreement that Moscow broke off from.
‘We play a leading role here. We see strong support from all around the world for the realisation of the grain corridor,’ Erdogan’s chief foreign policy and security advisor Akif Cagatay Kilic said in an interview on A Haber television channel.
‘The current status (of the grain deal) will be discussed at the summit on Monday. We are cautious, but we hope to achieve success because this is a situation that affects the entire world,’ Kilic said.
Turkey acknowledged the technical complexities surrounding the agreement, particularly concerning Russian grain and payment mechanisms, Kilic added.
The issue also involves international payment systems such as SWIFT, posing a multifaceted challenge, he said.
Putin and Erdogan’s long-awaited meeting is due to take place in Sochi on Russia’s southwest coast on Monday.
The Black Sea grain deal had allowed nearly 33 million metric tons (36 million tons) of grain and other commodities to leave three Ukrainian ports safely despite Russia’s war.
Russian President Vladimir Putin and Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan (File Photo). Erdogan will meet Putin tomorrow, hoping to persuade the Russian leader to rejoin the Black Sea grain deal that Moscow broke off from in July
The container ship ‘Joseph Schulte’, which has been stranded in the Odesa port of Ukraine since February 24, 2022, when Russia attacked Ukraine, passed through the Bosphorus on Friday morning on August 18, 2023. Joseph Schulte became the first cargo ship to leave the Port of Odessa outside the Black Sea Grain Initiative agreement
The Sochi summit follows talks between the Russian and Turkish foreign ministers on Thursday, during which Russia handed over a list of actions that the West would have to take in order for Ukraine’s Black Sea exports to resume.
Erdogan has indicated sympathy with Putin’s position.
In July, he said Putin had ‘certain expectations from Western countries’ over the Black Sea deal and that it was ‘crucial for these countries to take action in this regard.’
Zelensky and his French counterpart today discussed the ‘functioning’ of a sea corridor set up by Kyiv for safe navigation of ships after Moscow exited the grain deal.
They also spoke about enhancing the security of the Odesa region, Zelensky said on social media after the phone call.
Elsewhere in Ukraine, two people were killed and two others were wounded during Russian shelling Sunday on the village of Vuhledar in the Donetsk area.
Artillery fire hit eight settlements across the region, Ukraine’s National Police wrote on Telegram.
Ukrainian prosecutors also announced on Sunday that they had opened a war crimes investigation into the death of a police officer killed by Russian shelling on the town of Seredyna-Buda on Saturday afternoon.
Two other police officers and one civilian were wounded during the attack, which hit Ukraine’s north-eastern Sumy region.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky (File Photo)
A house burns after the Russian shelling close to the front line in Seversk, Donetsk region, Ukraine, on September 1, 2023
Meanwhile, Kyiv’s army has made an important breakthrough by breaching Russian lines in southern Ukraine, a key general said this weekend, noting that he now expected faster progress in the Zaporizhzhia area.
General Oleksandr Tarnavskiy, leading the southern counter-offensive, spoke several days after Kyiv declared a strategic victory by recapturing the southern village of Robotyne.
The interview came as Zelensky has increasingly dismissed criticism of Kyiv’s counter-offensive, that has made slower gains than expected.
‘We are now between the first and second defensive lines,’ Tarnavskiy said.
‘In the centre of the offensive, we are now completing the destruction of enemy units that provide cover for the retreat of Russian troops behind their second defensive line.’
Heavily-mined territory had slowed Ukrainian troops, but he said that sappers had cleaned a route by foot and at night.
Tarnavskiy told The Guardian that Moscow’s forces ‘just stood and waited for the Ukrainian army.’
The paper quoted him as saying that Kyiv’s forces are now back on vehicles and that Russia has redeployed troops to the area.
‘The enemy is pulling up reserves, not only from Ukraine but also from Russia. But sooner or later, the Russians will run out of all the best soldiers. This will give us an impetus to attack more and faster,’ Tarnavskiy said. ‘Everything is ahead of us.’
Kyiv’s army has made an important breakthrough by breaching Russian lines in southern Ukraine, General Oleksandr Tarnavskiy said this weekend, noting that he now expected faster progress in the Zaporizhzhia area (File Photo)
A Ukrainian serviceman operates an FPV drone from his positions at a front line, as Russia’s attack on Ukraine continues, near the village of Robotyne, Zaporizhzhia region, Ukraine August 25, 2023
Under Tarnavskiy’s command, Ukrainian troops liberated the southern city of Kherson last year.
He said that when Kyiv launched its counter-offensive in June, it ‘spent more time than we expected on demining territories.’
‘Unfortunately, the evacuation of the wounded was difficult for us. And this also complicated our advance,’ he said.
Tarnvaskiy admitted difficult losses for Kyiv.
‘The closer to victory, the harder it is. Why? Because, unfortunately, we are losing the strongest and best,’ he said.
‘So now we have to concentrate on certain areas and finish the job. No matter how hard it is for all of us.’
On Saturday, Zelensky again shrugged off criticism of the counter-offensive.
‘Despite everything and no matter what anyone says, we are advancing, and that is the most important thing,’ he said on Telegram.
‘We are on the move.’
Source: Read Full Article
