Russia again pounds port; wheat prices rise
Ukrainian officials say a series of nighttime air attacks hit targets across the country.
The bombardment crippled significant parts of export facilities in Odesa and nearby Chornomorsk and destroyed 60,000 tons of grain, according to Ukraine’s Agriculture Ministry.
It came days after Russian President Vladimir Putin pulled Russia out of its participation in the Black Sea Grain Initiative, a wartime deal that enabled Ukraine’s exports to reach many countries facing the threat of hunger.
It also followed a vow by Putin to retaliate against Kyiv for an attack Monday on the Kerch Bridge linking Russia with the Crimean peninsula, which the Kremlin illegally annexed in 2014.
Putin said Wednesday that Russia could return to the deal if the West offers Russian banks involved in servicing payments for the country’s agricultural exports immediate access to the SWIFT payment system, adding that Moscow wants its conditions met, not “some promises and ideas.”
The Russian leader also listed other demands, including a lifting of insurance and shipping restrictions that affect Russian agricultural exports and a resumption of Moscow’s export of ammonia to Odesa via a pipeline, a section of which was blown up last month.
He said Moscow has shown “miracles of patience and tolerance” by repeatedly extending the grain deal while Western nations used it to “shamelessly enrich themselves,” violating its declared goal of helping relieve hunger.
Further raising the stakes, the Russian Defense Ministry issued a statement that Moscow has declared international waters in northwestern and southeastern parts of the Black Sea “temporarily dangerous” for shipping. That follows Ukraine’s pledge to continue grain shipments despite the Russian pullout from the deal. The ministry warned that it will see any incoming vessel as laden with military cargo. “The countries whose flags those ships will fly will be seen as involved in the Ukrainian conflict on the side of the Kyiv regime,” it said.
Ukraine’s Agriculture Ministry, citing experts, estimated that it would take a year to restore the facilities damaged Wednesday. The destroyed grain was supposed to have been loaded onto a vessel and sent through the grain corridor two months ago, the statement said.
“Such attacks by Russian terrorists are not only affecting our country but also global stability,” Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said during a briefing with the visiting Irish prime minister in Kyiv. He said Ukraine needed more antiaircraft defense systems to protect the port.
Zelensky said his government was trying to find a way to maintain a corridor to keep grain exports flowing despite Russia’s decision to abandon the deal brokered with the United Nations and Turkey. “The corridor must be secure. In fact, knowing Russia, it won’t be safe unless the U.N. starts working very clearly and firmly at the level of the secretary-general,” he said.
Ukrainian Agriculture Minister Mykola Solskyi warned that if Ukraine cannot export food, “the population of the poorest countries will be on the brink of survival. The price of grain will increase, and not all countries will be able to afford buying agricultural products, which means food prices will significantly rise: flour, cereals, meat.”
Wheat prices rose more than 2.5% on Tuesday and over 3% on Wednesday amid the Russian attacks in Odesa, which is a key hub for exporting grain to the world, illustrating jitters in global markets just days after Moscow pulled out of the grain deal. However, Wednesday’s trading price of $6.91 a bushel was still more than 85% below last year’s peak.
German Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock tweeted that “Putin hasn’t just blown up the Black Sea Grain Initiative; now he has hit the port city of Odesa with a hail of bombs for the second consecutive night.
“In doing that, he is robbing the world of any hope of Ukrainian grain. Every one of his bombs also hits the world’s poorest,” she said.
Gov. Oleh Kiper said Oniks and Kh-22 missiles were used to hit grain and oil terminals. Debris from missiles and drones that were shot down fell on apartment buildings, resorts and warehouses, sparking fires and injuring several people.
The attacks were part of what Russia’s Defense Ministry described as a “strike of retribution” after Monday’s attack on the Kerch Bridge, a key span used for military and civilian supplies. The attack, apparently by maritime drones, damaged part of the roadway on the bridge, but rail traffic continued.
Ukraine’s top security agency appeared to tacitly admit to a role in the attack but stopped short of directly claiming responsibility, echoing its responses after a strike on the bridge in October, which forced months of repairs.
Russian emergency officials in Crimea, meanwhile, said more than 2,200 people were evacuated from four villages because of a fire at a military facility.
The blaze forced the closure of an important highway, according to Sergei Aksyonov, the Moscow-appointed head of the peninsula. He didn’t specify a cause for the fire at the facility in the Kirovsky district.
Elsewhere across Ukraine, authorities reported that drones and missiles were launched at more regions than in recent days.
“A difficult night of air attacks for all of Ukraine,” Serhii Popko, head of the Kyiv City Military Administration, said in a statement on Telegram. Ukrainian authorities reported more drones and missiles sent against more parts of Ukraine than in recent days.
Russia also attacked Kyiv with Iranian-made Shahed drones but without result, Popko said. Ukrainian air defenses intercepted all the drones, and a preliminary investigation showed there were no casualties.
USAID chief Samantha Power said the agency will work with the U.S. Congress to provide $230 million more to boost Ukraine’s economy and reconstruction. The funding will help businesses to meet European Union regulations to export more products and services to Europe, an agency statement said. On Tuesday, Power said USAID would provide $250 million in other funds for the agricultural sector.
Separately, South Africa’s president announced that Putin would not attend an economic summit next month in the country, which faced a legal quandary over whether to arrest the Russian leader on an International Criminal Court warrant related to Ukraine.
Putin has not traveled to any country that is a signatory to the court’s treaty since he was indicted by the ICC in March for alleged war crimes relating to the abduction of Ukrainian children.
South African authorities had given hints that they probably would not execute the arrest warrant, but the main opposition party has taken the government to court to try to compel it to arrest Putin if he sets foot on South African soil.
