Russia strike hit a grain terminals in Ukraine’s southern Odesa region Wednesday, local officials said, damaging storage facilities and ports along the Danube River that Kyiv has increasingly used for grain transport to Europe after Moscow broke off a key wartime export deal through the Black Sea.
At the same time, a loaded container ship stuck at the port of Odesa since Russia’s full-scale invasion more than 17 months ago set sail and was heading through the Black Sea to the Bosporus along a temporary corridor established by Ukraine for merchant shipping.
Ukraine’s economy, crunched by the war, is heavily dependent on farming. Its agricultural exports, like those of Russia, are also crucial for world supplies of wheat, barley, sunflower oil and other food that developing nations rely on.
It was the latest attack amid weeks of aerial strikes as Russia has targeted the Danube delta ports, which are only about 15 kilometers (10 miles) from the Romanian border. The Danube is Europe’s second-longest river and a key transport route.
Meanwhile, the container ship departing Odesa was the first vessel to set sail since July 16, according to Oleksandr Kubrakov, Ukraine’s deputy prime minister. It had been stuck in Odesa since February 2022.
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