Odesa, Ukraine. Russia and Ukraine intensified attacks linked to Black Sea trade routes on Wednesday, with a Russian strike killing three people in Odesa and Ukraine reporting drone attacks on Russian shipping.
Russian forces continued attacks on Ukraine’s port infrastructure, while Kyiv said its campaign was disrupting Russian logistics and shipping routes.
Odesa attacks
Odesa regional Governor Oleh Kiper said Russia’s “massive” drone and missile assault on the southern region had continued for a fifth consecutive day, targeting civilian, industrial and port infrastructure.
Ukrainian authorities said a Russian missile hit a seven-storey residential building in Odesa, killing three people and injuring at least three others.
Kiper said on Tuesday that two people were killed during an evening drone attack on port infrastructure in the region. A civilian vessel flying the Marshall Islands flag was damaged, he said.
Russia has increased attacks in recent days on Ukraine’s deepwater Black Sea ports in the Greater Odesa area, which handle much of the country’s grain and other cargo and are important to its wartime economy.
Ukrainian drone operations
Ukraine’s Unmanned Systems Forces commander, Robert Brovdi, said Ukrainian drones struck 20 Russian vessels in the Black Sea overnight.
“Now Black Sea,” Brovdi wrote on Telegram, adding that 116 vessels had been struck in the Sea of Azov this month.
Ukraine has expanded its efforts to disrupt logistics for Russian forces in Russian-occupied areas of southern Ukraine and to isolate Crimea, which Russia annexed in 2014.
Sources told Reuters that Ukrainian attacks had forced Russia, the world’s largest grain exporter, to restrict shipping in the Sea of Azov, a route handling about a quarter of Russian grain exports. The restrictions remained in place on Tuesday, the sources said.
Russian military claims
Russia’s Defence Ministry said its forces had continued overnight strikes on Ukrainian ports that it said were handling cargo for Ukraine’s military.
The ministry said targets had been hit at the ports of Odesa and nearby Chornomorsk, as well as four vessels it said were delivering cargo to Ukrainian forces in the ports of Chornomorsk and Dnipro-Buh.
