Russia targets Black Sea port after suspending Ukraine grain deal – National | 24CA News
Ukrainian forces shot down scores of exploding drones and 6 cruise missiles throughout a pre-dawn Russian assault on the port of Odesa on Tuesday, authorities in Kyiv stated, a day after Moscow broke off a deal that had allowed Ukraine to ship important grain provides from the Black Sea metropolis throughout the warfare.
The Russians first sought to put on down Ukraine’s air defenses with the drones after which focused Odesa with six Kalibr cruise missiles, the Ukrainian navy’s Southern Command stated.
All six missiles and 25 drones have been shot down by air defenses within the Odesa area and different areas within the south, although their particles and shock waves broken some port amenities and some residential buildings, injuring an aged man at his residence, officers stated.
Russia stated the grain choice was not related to a strike Monday on a key bridge between Moscow-annexed Crimea and Russia that the Kremlin blamed on Kyiv’s forces utilizing sea drones. Ukrainian officers stopped wanting immediately taking accountability, as they’ve accomplished in comparable previous strikes, however Ukraine’s prime safety company appeared tacitly to confess to a task within the strike.
Russia described Tuesday’s strikes alongside the Black Sea coast as “retribution” for that assault.
The Russian Defense Ministry stated it used sea-launched precision weapons on Ukrainian navy amenities close to Odesa and Mykolaiv, a coastal metropolis about 50 kilometers (30 miles) to the northeast.
The Russian navy destroyed amenities concerned in getting ready “terror attacks” in opposition to Russia that use sea drones, together with a facility at a shipyard close to Odesa that was producing them, the ministry stated, whereas additionally hitting Ukrainian military gasoline depots.
Andriy Yermak, the top of Ukraine’s presidential workplace, stated the Odesa assault confirmed that the Kremlin is able to endanger the lives of tens of millions of individuals world wide who want Ukrainian grain exports. Hunger is a rising risk in Africa, the Middle East and Asia, and excessive meals costs have pushed extra folks into poverty.
“The world must realize that the goal of the Russian Federation is hunger and killing people,” Yermak stated. “They need waves of refugees. They want to weaken the West with this.”
The United Nations and Ukraine’s Western allies slammed Moscow for halting the Black Sea Grain Initiative, saying it put many lives in peril.
The Kremlin stated the settlement could be suspended till Moscow’s calls for to elevate restrictions on exports of Russian meals and fertilizer to the world are met.
Meanwhile, the Russian Defense Ministry additionally stated its forces had foiled a Ukrainian assault on occupied Crimea utilizing 28 drones.
The ministry stated 17 of the attacking drones have been shot down by air defenses and 11 others have been jammed by digital warfare means and crashed. It stated there was no harm or casualties.
The reported assault got here a day after the Kremlin blamed Ukraine for hanging a bridge in Crimea that hyperlinks Russia to Moscow-annexed Crimea and is a key provide route for Kremlin forces within the warfare.
Also Tuesday, satellite tv for pc photographs from Planet Labs PBC analyzed by The Associated Press present that a big convoy of autos have arrived at a once-abandoned navy base in Belarus, which native authorities provided to Russia’s Wagner navy contractor following its short-lived mutiny in opposition to Moscow officers final month.
The photographs, taken Monday, present an extended line of autos coming off a freeway into the bottom close to the Belarusian city of Osipovichi, some 75 kilometers (45 miles) northwest of the capital, Minsk.
Belaruski Hajun, a Belarusian activist group that screens troops actions in Belarus, stated {that a} convoy of greater than 100 autos carrying Russian flags and Wagner insignia entered the nation, heading towards the sphere camp. The group stated it was the third Wagner convoy to enter the nation since final week.
Associated Press author Jon Gambrell in Dubai, United Arab Emirates, contributed to this report.
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