Russian missiles hit Ukraine's Black Sea port of Odesa hours after Moscow and Kyiv signed deals to allow grain exports to resume from there. The Ukrainian Foreign Ministry denounced Saturday's strike as “spit in the face” of Turkey and t🦂he United Nations, which brokered the agreements.
Two Russian Kalibr cruise missiles hit the port's infrastructure and Ukrainian air defenses brought down two others, the Ukrainian military's Southern Command said. It didn't🌠 specify the damᩚᩚᩚᩚᩚᩚᩚᩚᩚ𒀱ᩚᩚᩚage or say whether the strike caused casualties.
“It took less than 24 hours for Russia to launch a missile attack on Odesa's port, breaking its promises and undermining its commitments before the U.N. and Turkey under the Istanbul agreement,” Ukrainian Foreign Ministry spokesman Oleg Nik🌜olenko said.
“𒉰In case of non-fulfillment, Russia will bear full responsibility for a global food crisis.”
Nikolenko described the missile strike on 💞the 150th day of Russia's war in Ukraine as Russian President Vladimir Putin's “spit in the face of U.♛N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres and Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, who made great efforts to reach agreement.”
Guter🍰res' officeဣ issued a statement saying the U.N. chief “unequivocally condemns” the strikes.
“Yesterday, all parties made clear commitments on the 𓃲global stage to ensure the safe movement of Ukrainian grain and related products to globa🃏l markets,” the statement said.
“These products are desperately needed to address the global 🎀food crisis and ease the suffering of millions of people in need around the globe. Full implementation by the Russian Federation, Ukraine and Turkey is 🃏imperative.”
During a Friday signing ceremony in Istanbul, Gute🍌rres hailed the deals to open Ukraine's ports in Odesa, Chernomorsk andꦑ Yuzhny to commercial food exports as "a beacon of hope, a beacon of possibility, a beacon of relief in a world that needs it more than ever.”
The agreements were intended to clear t♛he way for the shipment of millions of tons of Ukrainian grain and some Russian exports of grain and fe🐟rtilizer held up by the war.
Ukraine is on🐼e of the world's largest exporters of wheat, corn and sunflower oil, but Russia's invasion of the country and naval blockade of its ports halted shipment🦩s.
Documents obtained by The Associated Pres๊s show๊ed the deals called for a U.N.-led joint coordination centre in Istanbul where officials from Ukraine, Russia, Turkey would oversee the scheduling and searches of cargo ships.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said in his nightly video address that the agreements offered “a chance to prevent a globa💞l cat☂astrophe – a famine that could lead to political chaos in many countries of the world, in particular in the countries that help us.”
The h🌳ead of Zelenskyy's office, Andriy Yermak, said on Twitter that the Odesa strike coming so soon after the endorsement of thꦫe Black Sea ports deal illustrated "the Russian diplomatic dichotomy.”
Along with t💞he strike on Odesa, Russia's military fired a barrage of missiles Saturday at an airfield and a railway facility in central Ukraine, killing at least three people, while Ukrainian forces launched rocket strikes on river crossings in a Russian-occupied southern region.
The attacks on key infrastructure marked new attempts by the warring parties to tip the scales of the grinding conflict in🐬 their favour.
In Ukraine's central Kirovohradska region, 13 Russian missiles struck an airf🎉ield and a railway facility. Gov. Andriy Raikovych said t🀅hat at least one serviceman and two guards were killed.
Thꦰe regional administration reported the strikes near th💮e city of Kirovohrad, wounded another 13 people.
In the south🔯ern Kherson region, which Russian troops seized early in the invasion, Ukrainian forces preparing for a potential counteroffensive fired rockets at Dnieper River crossings to try to disrupt ཧsupplies to the Russians.
Despite the progress on that front, fighting raged unabated in eastern Ukraine's industrial heartland of the Donbas, where Russian forces tried to make new gains🔯 in the face of stiff Ukrainian resistance.
Russian troops also have faced Ukrainian counterattacks but l🦹🐼argely held their ground in the Kherson region just north of the Crimean Peninsula, which Russia annexed in 2014.
Earlier this week, the Ukrainians bombardℱed the Antonivskyi Bridge across the Dnieper River using the U.S.-supplied High🌊 Mobility Artillery Rocket System, Kirill Stremousov, deputy head of the Russia-appointed regional administration in Kherson, said.
Stremousov told Russian state news agency Tass that the only other crossing of the Dnieper, the dam 🐼of the Kakhovka hydroelectric plant, also came under attack from rockets launched with the weꦕapons supplied by Washington but wasn't damaged.
HIMARS, which fires GPS-guided rockets at targets 80 kilometers (50 miles) away, a distance that puts it out of reach of most Russian artillery 🐎systems, has significantly bolstered the Ukrainian strike capability.
In addition, Ukrainian forces shelled an automobile bridge across the Inhulets💜 River in the village of Darivဣka, Stremousov told Tass. He said the bridge just east of the regional capital of Kherson sustained seven hits but remained open to traffic.
Stremousov saod that unlike the An꧟tonivskyi Bridge, the small bridge in Darivka h⛄as no strategic value.
Since April, the Kremlin has concentrated on capturing the Donbas, a mostly Russian-speaking region of eastern Ukraine where pro-Russia sepa♏ra🉐tists have proclaimed independence.
However, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavr🧜ov emphasized🉐 Wednesday that Moscow plans to retain control of other areas its forces occupy during the war.
(With PTI inputs)
