By Enyichukwu Enemanna
Ukraine has accused Russia of damaging at least 40,000 tonnes of grain in an overnight strike on southern Ukrainian warehouses near the Danube.
“As a result of the attack, fires broke out at the facilities of the port and industrial infrastructure of the region, and an elevator was damaged,” Odesa region Governor Oleh Kiper said in a statement on the Telegram messaging app on Wednesday.
Kyiv’s infrastructure minister, Oleksandr Kubrakov, also corroborated this in a social media post.
“The Russians attacked warehouses and grain elevators — almost 40,000 tonnes of grain were damaged,” the minister said in an English-language post.
The drone attack at the coastal region of Odesa where the storage facility is located affected the grain destined for shipment to African nations, China and Israel, officials said.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy accused Russia of waging an attack on “global food security”.
“Unfortunately, there are damages,” Zelenskyy said on Telegram.
“The most significant ones are in the south of the country. Russian terrorists have once again attacked ports, grain, global food security,” he added.
Romanian President Klaus Iohannis called Russia’s repeated attacks on Ukraine’s Danube infrastructure near Romania “unacceptable” war crimes.
Russian drones targeted Ukraine’s Danube ports last month, destroying a grain warehouse, according to authorities in Kyiv.
Kyiv has accused Moscow of stepping up attacks on Ukrainian grain infrastructure by hitting 26 port facilities, five civilian vessels and 180,000 tonnes of grain in nine days of attacks, since quitting the Black Sea grain deal.
