KYIV: Russia struck Ukraine’s port of Odesa with missiles and drones on Tuesday (Jul 18), a day after pulling out of a United Nations-backed deal to let Kyiv export grain, and Ukrainian officials said Moscow was attempting to go back on the offensive in the east.
Russian attacks on Ukraine’s ports followed a pledge by Moscow to retaliate for blasts on Russia’s road bridge to the occupied Crimean Peninsula, knocked out on Monday by what Moscow said were strikes by Ukrainian seaborne drones.
Shortly after the bridge was hit on Monday, Moscow pulled out of the year-old UN-brokered grain export deal, a move the UN said risked creating hunger around the world.
Russia’s overnight attacks on Ukraine’s ports were “further proof that the country-terrorist wants to endanger the lives of 400 million people in various countries that depend on Ukrainian food exports”, Andriy Yermak, the head of Ukraine’s presidential staff, said on Telegram.
Ukraine’s air force said six Kalibr missiles and 31 out of 36 drones, were shot down, mostly over the coastal Odesa and Mykolaiv regions in the south.
Ukraine’s southern operational military command said falling debris and blast waves damaged several homes and unspecified port infrastructure in Odesa, but gave few details. Local authorities in Mykolaiv, another port, described a serious fire there.
Moscow, for its part, said it had foiled a Ukrainian drone strike on Crimea, with no major damage on the ground. It said a single lane of road traffic had reopened on the Crimea bridge.
Ukraine launched a counteroffensive last month and has recaptured some villages in the south and territory around the ruined city of Bakhmut in the east, but has yet to attempt a major breakthrough across heavily defended Russian lines.
Ukrainian commanders said Russian forces were now attempting to return to the offensive north of Bakhmut in Ukraine’s Kharkiv region, along a strip of the front line in territory recaptured by Ukraine last year.
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