A year and a half after the war in Ukraine, Russia attacked Odesa with Kalibr cruise missiles and about twenty Shahed drones, provoking damage to port infrastructure of the city, one of the three Ukrainian ports that were included in the grain agreement that Moscow terminated on Monday.
“Last night Odesa was attacked with six Kalibr missiles from the Black Sea,” reported the representative of the region’s Military Administration, Serguí Bratchuk, who explained that all the missiles were shot down by Ukrainian anti-aircraft defenses.
“The Black Sea deal has de facto ended today,” Dmitri Peskov, the Kremlin spokesman, told reporters after a Ukrainian attack partially destroyed the bridge connecting his territory to the annexed Crimean peninsula.
The Odessa region has three ports that were part of the agreement, crucial for the world’s food supply. The Russian military invasion of the Black Sea has compromised its navigability, which is dominated by Russian forces.
Russia accumulates 100,000 soldiers, some 900 tanks, 555 artillery systems and 370 rocket launchers in the area of the Liman and Kupiansk front, in the northeastern province of Kharkov, crucial because they intersect a twenty railway routes that connect both with Russia and the rest of Ukraine.