Russian airstrikes killed four people in Ukraine and caused “significant damage” to infrastructure at the Black Sea port of Odesa and to grain storage facilities, Ukrainian officials said on Monday.
The attacks were part of an air campaign that has made it harder for Ukraine, a major grain producer, to export its products since Moscow quit a deal in mid-July that had allowed Black Sea shipments and helped combat a global food crisis.
The strikes have intensified as Kyiv presses on with a counteroffensive in the south and east that has made slow gains but could be boosted by the delivery of U.S.-made Abrams tanks, announced on Monday by President Volodymyr Zelenskyy.
“Another massive attack on Odesa!,” Economy Minister Yulia Svyrydenko said on X, the social media platform formerly known as Twitter. “The attack resulted in the destruction of grain storage facilities and significant damage to the seaport.”
Oleh Kiper, the Odesa region governor, said the facilities that were hit had contained almost 1,000 tons of grain and that the bodies of two men were found under the rubble of a warehouse where grain was stored.
Ukraine’s military said 19 Iranian-made Shahed drones and 11 cruise missiles were shot down overnight, most of them directed at the Odesa region. The grain storage facilities that were destroyed were hit by two supersonic missiles, it said.
The Energy Ministry said damage to power grids cut off power to more than 1,000 consumers in the Odesa region, a reminder of airstrikes that at times left millions of Ukrainians without heating and light in the freezing cold last winter.
A man aged 73 and a woman of 70 were killed in a separate airstrike on the town of Beryslav in the southern Kherson region, officials said.
Debris falls in Moldova
Missile debris was discovered in Moldova’s breakaway Transdniestria region on Monday after Russia’s overnight strikes in neighbouring Odesa, an official said.
Oleg Beliakov, co-head of a special commission overseeing security arrangements in the breakaway region, said police, sappers and military observers were on the site in the village of Chitcani, about 35 kilometres from the Ukrainian border.
Beliakov said an explosion had been heard and part of an S-300 missile came down in a garden near a private house but did not explode and caused no damage.
“The warhead … is lying in the garden. There are some elements with markings still on it, from which it was possible to establish that this was an S-300 missile of the 1968 model,” Beliakov told reporters.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy left Canada, returning home to news of another deadly Russian attack. The federal government has pledged $650 million in further aid to Ukraine, and U.S. media are reporting the Biden administration will send long-range missiles.
It was not immediately clear who had fired the missile.
The S-300 long-range surface-to-air missile system was developed by the Soviet Union and are used both by Russia and Ukraine.
Authorities in Moldova have at least four times reported finding missile debris in northern parts of the country since Russia invaded Ukraine in February 2022 and intensified missile and drone attacks on Ukraine’s Odesa region.
In an open debate over the war in Ukraine at the UN Security Council, Ukrainian President Volodmyr Zelenskyy called for major overhaul at the United Nations, including the removal of Russia’s veto power. Russia fired back, objecting to Zelenskyy’s presence and accusing the West of provoking the war.
U.S. sending more weapons
The Ukrainian Defence Ministry said the latest attack was “a pathetic attempt” to retaliate for a strike on the headquarters of Russia’s Black Sea navy on Friday.
Ukraine has been heavily reliant on Western weapons to defend itself against Russia and then to hit back in the counteroffensive that began in early June.
Announcing the latest arms delivery, Zelenskyy said Abrams tanks had already arrived in Ukraine and were being prepared for action.
The Current19:12Zelenskyy visits Canada as Ukraine war drags on
“I am grateful to our allies for fulfilling the agreements! We are looking for new contracts and expanding our supply geography,” said Zelenskyy, who visited the U.S. last week.
Ukraine’s counterattack has included stepping up its attacks which Moscow says have hit targets in Russia and Crimea, the peninsula seized and annexed by Moscow in 2014.
The Russian Defence Ministry said on Monday its air defences had shot down drones over the northwestern part of the Black Sea, over Crimea, and over the Russian regions of Kursk and Belgorod regions. It mentioned no deaths.
Kyiv did not comment on the Russian reports, and Moscow offered no comment on the air strikes in Ukraine.
Ukraine’s Special Forces said on Monday that Admiral Viktor Sokolov, the commander of Russia’s Black Sea Fleet, had been killed in a Ukrainian attack last week on the fleet headquarters in the Crimean port of Sevastopol.
The Russian Defence Ministry did not immediately respond when asked to confirm or deny that Sokolov had been killed.
Russian-installed officials confirmed the Ukrainian attack on Friday, saying that at least one missile struck the fleet headquarters.
Kyiv has stepped up attacks in the Black Sea and Crimea as Ukrainian forces press on with a nearly four-month-old counteroffensive to take back Russian-occupied territory.
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