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Russia on Wednesday attacked Ukraine's main inland port on the Danube River from Romania, sending global food prices soaring as it increases its use of force to restore the blockade.
Ukraine's Defense Ministry said a grain silo was damaged in the Danube port of Izmail in the Odesa region: “Ukrainian grain has the potential to feed millions of people around the world,” the ministry wrote on the platform. X messages.
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The port, across the river from NATO member Romania, has served as Ukraine's main alternative route for grain exports since Russia reintroduced its de facto blockade of Ukrainian Black Sea ports in mid-July.
A video released by Ukrainian authorities showed firefighters on ladders battling a large, multi-story fire in a covered building with broken windows. Several other large buildings were in ruins and grain leaked from at least two destroyed silos.
There were no reports of casualties, Odesa region governor Oleh Kiper wrote in a post on the messaging app Telegram.
“Unfortunately, there was damage,” President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said on Telegram. “The most significant are in the south of the country. Russian terrorists have once again attacked ports, grain, global food security.”
An industry source also confirmed that Izmail was the main target of the attack, describing the level of damage as “serious”.
Chicago wheat prices rose 4% after Wednesday's attack and were still up about 2.5% in late morning, with traders worried again about a hit to global supply due to the withdrawal of Ukraine, one of the world's biggest exporters. , from the market.
Russia has been relentlessly attacking Ukrainian agricultural and port infrastructure for more than two weeks since refusing to extend an agreement that lifted a wartime blockade of Ukrainian ports last year.
PUTIN-ERDOGAN CONVERSATION
The Kremlin said President Vladimir Putin spoke by phone with the sponsor of the grain export deal, Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan.
Putin reiterated Russia's condition for returning to the grain deal: that a parallel agreement be implemented that improves the terms of its own food and fertilizer exports. Such exports are already exempt from sanctions, which the West says Moscow aims to undermine by putting pressure on global food supplies.
Moscow described its recent strikes as retaliation for a Ukrainian attack on a bridge to Crimea used to supply its troops in southern Ukraine.
US Ambassador Bridget Brink listed recent Russian targets.
"Houses. Ports. Grain silos. Historic buildings. Men. Women. Children,” she said in a statement released by the embassy.
“Continued and intensified Russian attacks in Kryvyi Rih, Kharkiv, Kiev and Kherson make it clear once again that Russia does not want peace, does not think about civilian security and does not care about the people around the world who depend on food from Ukraine."
Kiev says the aim of the attacks is to reinstate Russia's blockade by persuading shippers and their insurers that Ukrainian ports are unsafe to resume exports.
“It is the enemy's priority to convince the international community and shipowners in particular that the ports of Odesa, the ports of Ukraine are unreliable places to operate, work, load, sail. ports under control are dangerous,” said Natalia Humeniuk, a military spokeswoman in southern Ukraine.
Producers in Ukraine are already feeling the impact. Kees Huizinga, a farmer from central Ukraine's Cherkasy region, told Reuters: "Because of the shelling, a direct consequence for our farm is that we cannot deliver 700 tons of contracted barley that we were supposed to deliver today."
Ukraine's Danube river ports, such as Izmail, accounted for about a quarter of grain exports before Russia pulled out of the Black Sea agreement, and have since become the main remaining route, with grain loaded onto barges and shipped to the port. Romanian from Constanta on the Black Sea for shipping onwards.
On Sunday, Ukrainian media reported that several foreign cargo ships arrived directly at Izmail from the Black Sea for the first time since the grain deal ended, an apparent attempt to open a loophole in Russia's newly restored blockade.
The United Nations has warned of a potential food crisis and famine in the world's poorest countries as a result of Russia's decision to abandon the deal, brokered by the UN and Turkey.
Moscow says it will treat ships heading to Ukrainian ports as potential military targets. Kiev said it expects the ships to return anyway.
As a result of the deal's collapse in mid-July, Ukraine's grain exports for the month fell by 40% compared to June, analysts said on Tuesday.
Russian drones attacked Ukrainian Danube ports once before in late July, destroying a grain warehouse. Ukrainian officials said Moscow has hit 26 port facilities, five civilian ships and 180,000 tonnes of grain in nine days of strikes since leaving the grain deal.
Ukraine's Air Force said Russia also launched a drone attack on Kiev and the surrounding region overnight. Air defense shot down 23 drones, but debris from the downed drones damaged several buildings in the capital and the region. No casualties were initially reported.
Source: Pavel Polityuk and Peter Graff | Notícias Agrícolas
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