Kyiv, Ukraine
Reuters
Russia destroyed Ukrainian grain warehouses on the Danube River in a drone attack on Monday, targeting a vital export route for Kyiv in an expanding air campaign that Moscow began last week after quitting the Black Sea grain deal.
Last week’s attacks mostly struck the sea ports of Odesa but Monday’s pre-dawn strikes hit infrastructure along the Danube, an export route whose importance has grown since the demise of the deal allowing Ukrainian grain shipments via the Black Sea.
Storage tanks damaged by a Russian drone strike are seen in a sea port, amid Russia’s attack on Ukraine, in Odesa region, Ukraine, on 24th July, 2023. PICTURE: Press Service of the the Operational Command South of the Ukrainian Armed Forces/Handout via Reuters.
“The Russian terrorists have again attacked the Odesa region overnight. Port infrastructure on the Danube river is the target this time,” Regional Governor Oleh Kiper wrote on the Telegram messaging app.
Global wheat and corn futures rose sharply on fears that Russian attacks and more fighting, including an overnight drone strike on Moscow, could threaten grain exports and shipping.
A police officer carries debris to the members of the security services investigating a bridge near the site of a damaged building following a reported drone attack in Moscow, Russia, on 24th July, 2023. PICTURE: Rueters/Maxim Shemetov
WHITE HOUSE SAYS IT DOES NOT BACK UKRAINE ATTACKS INSIDE RUSSIA
The White House said it did not support Ukraine launching attacks inside Russia after two drones from Ukraine damaged buildings in Moscow earlier on Monday.
“As a general matter we do not support attacks inside of Russia,” White House spokesperson Karine Jean-Pierre told reporters in a press briefing.
Russia vowed to take harsh retaliatory measures against Ukraine, calling the two drone strikes, including one close to the Defence Ministry’s headquarters, a brazen act of terror.
“This is a war that Russia started. This is their war,” Jean-Pierre said. “And they can end it at any time by withdrawing forces from Ukraine instead of launching brutal attacks on civilians.”
Nobody was hurt in the attack in Moscow – the most high-profile of its kind since two drones reached the Kremlin in May.
One drone struck close to Russia’s defense headquarters in a symbolic blow that underscored the reach of such drones, and a senior Ukrainian official said there would be more attacks.
– JEFF MASON and KANISHKA SINGH, Washington DC, US/Reuters
Hours after Monday’s attack, UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres appealed for Russia to return to the Black Sea grain deal, warning in Rome of a devastating impact on “vulnerable countries struggling to feed their people.”
News website Reni-Odesa cited a local official as saying three grain warehouses had been destroyed in the Danube port city of Reni during the drone attack.
Video footage verified by Reuters showed a man cursing in disbelief at damaged grain warehouses at Reni, an important transport hub across the Danube from NATO and European Union member Romania.
“This recent escalation poses serious risks to the security in the Black Sea,” Romanian President Klaus Iohannis said on Twitter.
Since Russia’s invasion in February, 2022, Ukraine has expanded grain exports overland via the EU to about a million tons a month, with large volumes being exported from Romanian ports and along the Danube.
“Food terrorism”
“Russia has in the past months not attacked Ukraine’s overland and inland waterways grain infrastructure,” a European trader said. “Any interruption of this traffic could quickly hit international grain supplies.
A French trader called it a “major development and a major blow” to Ukrainian exports, adding: “Without the Black Sea corridor and now with attacks on alternative routes, it will be hard to take Ukrainian grains out of the country.”
Ukrainian officials gave few details. Police said grain warehouses had been hit along with tanks for storing other cargo, causing a fire that Kiper said wounded seven people, one critically.
In photographs of the damage published by police, containers could be seen with the logo of Maersk Group.
“Russia is trying to fully block the export of our grain and make the world starve,” Kiper said.
Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba accused Russia of trying to extract concessions “by holding 400 million people hostage” and called for “a united global response to food terrorism.”
Some Ukrainian news outlets reported explosions overnight in the area of Izmail, another Danube port in the Odesa region, but no confirmed reports of damage followed.
Ship-tracking Data showed almost 30 ships had dropped anchor near Izmail. It was not clear what caused them to stop.
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Meanwhile, French news agency Agence France-Presse said one of its video correspondents had been injured in a drone attack while reporting at a Ukrainian artillery position.
The agency identified the reporter as Dylan Collins, a US national who has reported extensively on the Ukraine conflict.
It said he sustained multiple shrapnel injuries near the eastern city of Bakhmut, captured by Russian forces in May after months of battles. He was being treated in a nearby hospital.
The United Nations cultural arm UNESCO says that as of 20th July, 12 journalists have died in Ukraine since the start of the conflict in February, 2022.
Seperately, the Kremlin on Monday accused Kyiv of carrying out a “deliberate attack on journalists” in Ukraine’s south-eastern Zaporizhzhia region, in which a reporter for the Russian state news agency RIA was killed.
Russia has launched a criminal probe into Rostislav Zhuravlev’s death.
– Additional reporting by VALENTYN OGIRENKO in Kyiv, MICHAEL HOGAN in Hamburg, Germany, SYBILLE DE LA HAMAIDE, LUIZA ILIE and ANNA PRUCHNICKA
