Moscow, Jul. 24, (dpa/GNA) – Russia continued targeting key Ukrainian grain stores on Monday, striking the Ukrainian port region of Odessa and Danube ports near the Romanian border.
At least seven people were injured in the attacks on Odessa, according to the regional military administration. Two injured people could be treated on site, while five others were taken to hospital.
Ukrainian air defences repelled some drones that struck the Black Sea area, but some hits were also recorded in Danube ports, Natalya Humenyuk, a military spokeswoman for the Army’s Southern Command said.
Ukraine’s Danube ports near the Romanian border were particularly targeted in the overnight Russian attack.
Romanian news agency Mediafax said the Ukrainian ports in question were Reni and Izmail, close to the border with Romania.
The mayor of Reni, Igor Plehov, told Ukrainian media that three grain silos had been destroyed.
Romanian sailors had seen and heard the explosions, Mediafax said.
Six Romanian ships in the port of Reni at the time managed to escape to the Romanian bank of the Danube unharmed.
Romanian President Klaus Iohannis strongly condemned the Russian attacks on his country’s border.
“This recent escalation poses serious risks to the security in the Black Sea. It also affects further [Ukrainian] grain transit and thus the global food security,” he wrote on Twitter on Monday.
Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba accused Russia of “food terrorism” and called for a global response to the Russian attacks.
Russia has repeatedly attacked the Odessa region since Moscow allowed the grain agreement to expire. The city of Odessa has been hit repeatedly, with strikes on the Old Town on Saturday night severely damaging the Russian Orthodox Church of the Transfiguration. At least one person was killed, and more than 20 were injured.
Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov on Monday rejected any responsibility for the shelling of Odessa.
“Our armed forces never carry out strikes against objects of social infrastructure and even less against temples, churches and other similar objects,” he claimed.
Peskov stated without any evidence that the Ukrainians had damaged the cathedral themselves with anti-aircraft missiles.
In Russia, Moscow was attacked by two drones early on Monday, according to Russian media.
No one was injured and there was no major damage, Moscow Mayor Sergei Sobyanin said, according to the state news agency TASS. The Russian Defence Ministry said Ukraine’s attempt to carry out a “terrorist attack” in Moscow with two drones had been foiled.
One drone was spotted in the centre of the Russian capital and another hit a high-rise office building in the south of the city, an emergency services official said. An explosion was heard. Sobyanin spoke of two buildings hit.
One of the buildings hit was the Russian Central Military Orchestra, according to the independent internet portal Astra. There is very little damage to the building however, said the report.
Drones had already been shot down over Moscow’s territory at the beginning of July, according to the Russian Defence Ministry, which blamed Ukraine for the drone attacks.
For weeks now, attacks have been occurring in Russia – mostly in the region near the border with Ukraine.
Houses were damaged and people were injured in a drone attack on Moscow at the end of May, according to Russian authorities.
Peskov said on Monday, however, that the Kremlin sees no reason to tighten security measures for the Russian capital despite the fresh drone attacks.
“That is hardly necessary here,” Interfax quoted Peskov as saying.
He added that security agencies were already working “around the clock,” referring for example, to surveillance on the bridge to the Black Sea peninsula of Crimea, occupied by Russia since 2014, which has been the target of attacks several times.
Ukrainian attacks continued in Russian-occupied Crimea, where another ammunition depot was struck on Monday, according to Moscow-appointed governor Sergei Aksyonov on Telegram.
Eleven drones were shot down over Crimea, he said, but there was an “impact at the ammunition depot in the Dzhankoy district.”
Videos shared online showed a large cloud of smoke. A residential building in the south of the peninsula was also damaged.
Several camps and depots supply Russian occupation forces in southern Ukraine in Dzhankoy, a district in north-eastern Crimea, and the main supply line for the Russian units runs through Crimea.
Rail and vehicle traffic on the route between Dzhankoy and the regional capital Simferopol was suspended and nearby villages are to be evacuated.
The latest attack comes after two other ammunition depots were hit in Crimea, one in the central region and an arsenal in the south, leading to ammunition explosions for days. The Ukrainian military confirmed it was behind both attacks.
Ukraine’s counteroffensive is progressing, according to Deputy Defence Minister Hanna Maliar. Kiev’s troops have recaptured 227 square kilometres of land from Russia so far.
She said Kiev’s forces took back 192 square kilometres of territory on the southern sections of the front. Of this, 12 square kilometres had been liberated within the past week.
In the section around the city of Bakhmut, now controlled by Russian forces, Ukraine recaptured a total of 35 square kilometres.
Last week, Ukraine regained 4 square kilometres in the eastern Donetsk region.
The information cannot be independently verified.
Russia launched its full-scale war against Ukraine in February 2022. Ukrainian military observers say the Kremlin’s troops still control more than 100,000 square kilometres of Ukrainian territory, including the Crimean peninsula annexed illegally in 2014.
GNA