Grain silos and warehouses were hit during successive Russian drone attacks on one of the country’s Danube river ports located near the border with Romania, a Ukrainian official said.
The governor of Ukraine’s Odesa region, Oleh Kiper, said on Wednesday that two waves of Russian drones had hit a river port in the south of the country.
Ukraine has two main ports on the Danube – Reni and Izmail – which have become central to the country’s grain exports since Russia’s blockade of Ukraine’s Black Sea ports and Moscow’s recent withdrawal from a United Nations-backed agreement that had allowed grain stocks safe passage through the sea.
The governor did not specify which port was attacked.
Social media groups monitoring the war reported hearing air defence systems firing near the Izmail and Reni ports earlier on Wednesday morning.
Kiper had asked residents of the Izmail district to take shelter at about 1:30am (22:30 GMT on Tuesday) and cancelled the air raid alert one hour later.
Ukraine’s Danube river ports accounted for approximately a quarter of all grain exports from Ukraine before Russia recently pulled out of the deal allowing safe passage for the export of Ukrainian grain via the country’s Black Sea ports.
لحظة ضرب الصوامع في مرفأ ريني، أوكرانيا فجر اليوم#أوكرانيا #روسيا #ميناء_ريني #موانئ #صوامع #نهر_الدانوب #ربان_السفينة pic.twitter.com/RhAfdezesv
— Robban Assafina (@robbanassafina) August 16, 2023
Source: AlJazeera
