Ukraine accuses Russia of attacking sites used for grain exports

Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelensky on Wednesday accused Russia of “deliberately” targeting infrastructure used to export Ukrainian agricultural products, days after concluding a key agreement on the subject.

Russia, for its part, was battling a major fire on military land in the occupied Ukrainian peninsula of Crimea, which led to the evacuation of 2,000 residents of neighboring municipalities.

After a second night in a row of Russian attacks on Odessa, a strategic port in southern Ukraine, the Ukrainian president accused Russian troops in a telegram of “deliberately targeting the infrastructure of the grain agreement” that allows Kiev to export its vital production for world food.

According to the ministry in charge of the reconstruction of Ukraine, “grain terminals and port infrastructure” of the ports of Odessa and Chornomorsk were attacked, for example “silos and docks of the port of Odessa” were damaged.

The Ukrainian General Prosecutor’s Office indicated that this was the “biggest Russian attack” on the region.

According to Kiev, Kalibr cruise missiles, Martyr explosive drones, but also Onyx and Kh-22 anti-ship missiles, which are rarely used by Moscow, were launched mainly in the Odessa region.

In total, at least 12 people were injured in the region during the night due to this new onslaught of Russian attacks, according to its governor, Oleg Kiper, with the public prosecutor’s office announcing the number of wounded at ten.

The Kremlin warned of new “risks” in the Black Sea on Tuesday following the suspension of a grain agreement that allowed the safe transport of Ukrainian agricultural products despite the conflict and a blockade of Ukrainian ports by the Russian Navy.

Moscow has refused to uphold the deal, signed in July 2022 under the auspices of the United Nations and Turkey and extended several times, condemning barriers to trade in Russian fertilizers and food products.

The Kremlin also accused Ukraine of using the sea corridor opened under the agreement “for military purposes”.

– Fire at military base –

Odessa and its region are home to three ports through which Ukraine, under the concluded grain agreement, can export its agricultural products.

Over a year, the agreement has enabled the removal of some 33 million tonnes of grain, mainly maize and wheat, from Ukrainian ports, helping to stabilize world food prices and curb the risk of shortages.

“The Russian terror in Odessa has proved once again that they need hunger and problems in the countries of the Global South”, Andrey Yermak, head of the Ukrainian presidential administration, responded in a telegram.

A fire broke out on Wednesday at a military training ground in the Kirovsky district, east of the Ukrainian peninsula of Crimea, in the same region of the Black Sea.

According to the region’s Russian governor, Sergei Aksionov, they caused the evacuation of “residents of four adjacent localities”, more than 2,000 people, who, according to the speaker of Crimea’s parliament, Vladimir Konstantinov, would not be able to return home for two or three days.

Mash and Baza, two Russian online media close to Russian security services, reported in the morning that explosions had been heard in the area for several hours and published videos showing the explosions.

Kiev has remained silent and Russian officials have not confirmed the munitions detonation while Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told the press that Vladimir Putin had been “informed” about the fire.

Since the start of the conflict, Ukraine has regularly launched attacks on Crimea, a strategic region that serves as a rear base for Russian troops in their offensive on Ukraine.

On Monday, the Kerch Bridge, a vital road and rail infrastructure linking the peninsula to Russia, had already been hit by a Ukrainian attack, which damaged it for the second time in ten months.

On the front, fighting is concentrated in eastern Ukraine where the two armies face each other.

The governor of the Donetsk region, Pavlo Kirilenko, said on a telegram on Wednesday that ten civilians were wounded in Russian shelling on Tuesday.

In addition, the South African President announced on Wednesday that Russian President Vladimir Putin would not attend the BRICS (South Africa, Brazil, China, India and Russia) summit in Johannesburg in late August, ending months of speculation on the subject.