Russia fired swarms of drones at Ukrainian grain and port facilities before dawn on Monday, the second large-scale drone attack in the past 48 hours in the southern region of Odesa, aimed at the Ukrainian side of the Danube River.
The latest attack lasted more than three hours, Ukrainian officials said, adding that they shot down 17 drones targeting the Izmail district, the site of a major river port, but some avoid air defenses. It comes hours before President Vladimir V. Putin and his Turkish counterpart Recep Tayyip Erdogan are expected to discuss how to resume shipping agricultural products across the Black Sea.
“Warehouses and production buildings, agricultural machinery and equipment of industrial enterprises were damaged,” the head of the military administration of the Odesa region, Oleg Kiper, said in a statement. There were no immediate reports of casualties.
Emergency crews are still dealing with the devastation caused by a wave of attacks before dawn on Sunday, which the Ukrainian military said featured more than two dozen drones and injured at least two civilians.
Since withdrawing the Black Sea grain agreement, which allowed Ukraine to ship its agricultural products by waterway, Russia has stepped up attacks on Ukrainian port facilities in the Black Sea Sea as well as the Danube, determined to maintain its stranglehold on Ukraine’s economy. In mid-August, granaries and warehouses at Izmail and Reni, another port on the river, were destroyed in Russian attacks.
The ports are on the lower reaches of the Danube, where it forms part of Ukraine’s border with Romania before emptying into the Black Sea. Recent attacks have come dangerously close to Romania, a NATO member, raising fears that an errant Russian drone or missile flying a short distance could risk dragging the United States and its allies into a direct military confrontation with Moscow.
On Monday, a spokesman for the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Ukraine said on social media that Russian drones fell on Romanian territory — a claim Romania quickly denied. In a statement, the Romanian defense ministry said this “definitely rejected” reports and that “at any time” there has been a “direct” threat to its territory or territories.
Ukrainian officials are working to convince shipping companies and international partners that shipping from the Black Sea ports in Odesa can continue without any agreement with Russia.
In an attempt to reroute exports of grain and other goods, Kyiv established a temporary corridor past the mines deployed by Ukraine on the coast, allowing ships to reach Romanian territorial waters and then Bulgaria and Turkey, all NATO members. It has begun allowing civilian ships that have been stuck in Ukrainian ports since before the full-scale Russian invasion to leave the country altogether.