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Russian missiles hit the Black Sea port of Odessa on Saturday, Ukrainian officials said, jeopardizing an agreement reached by Moscow and Kyiv a day earlier to allow the transportation of millions of tons of held grain and alleviate the global food crisis.
The military command in southern Ukraine said two Caliber cruise missiles hit port infrastructure but not grain silos in Odessa, one of the country’s largest and most important maritime trading cities.
Air raid warnings sounded around 11am with sounds of explosions echoing across the city. The Southern Military Command reported no casualties. It said air defense systems shot down two other missiles in the attack, which the US ambassador to Ukraine described as “outrageous”.
The strike threatens a deal that diplomats hailed less than 24 hours earlier as a breakthrough after months of negotiations. Friday’s agreement, brokered by the United Nations and Turkey, will help lift the Black Sea blockade that has exacerbated global hunger, particularly in Africa and the Middle East.
A keystone of the deal is Russia’s promise not to attack Odessa and two other ports involved in the supply. The deal included security guarantees for both Ukraine and Russia, which agreed not to “undertake any attacks against merchant ships and other civilian vessels and port facilities” related to the initiative.
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Ukraine’s ambassador to Turkey said the attack showed the deal with Russia was not worth “even the signed paper”, while a Ukrainian foreign ministry official called it a “spit in the face” of the UN chief and Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan.
“This proves only one thing: no matter what Russia says and promises, it will find ways not to fulfill it,” Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said.
Anton Gerashchenko, an adviser to Ukraine’s Ministry of Internal Affairs, shared an image on Telegram that appeared to show smoke rising from the port. “How will the safety of ships in the port of Odessa be ensured if Russia continues the shelling?” he wrote.
Turkish Defense Minister Hulusi Akar said on Saturday that Ukrainian officials had told him that the strikes had not impeded “the capacity and capability of the docks, which is important.”
“The Russians have told us that they have absolutely nothing to do with this attack and are investigating the matter very carefully and in detail,” he told reporters in the city of Kayseri. “We are disturbed by this as well.”
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Natalya Khumeniuk, a spokeswoman for Ukraine’s southern military command, said a Russian missile hit a pumping station and a fire broke out in the city, Ukrainian national television Suspilne reported. Images provided by the military to Reuters show firefighters battling flames near a ship in port.
Before the war, which is now approaching its sixth month, Ukraine was among the world’s major grain exporters. But with more than 20 million tonnes stranded in Black Sea ports, the conflict has caused food shortages and a spike in global prices, and heightened fears of acute famine in poorer nations.
Saturday’s attack, hours after the grain deal was signed, “suggests that there is no guarantee that even the ships carrying the grain will not be attacked,” causing concern among aid organizations in East Africa, said Shashwat Saraf, director of emergencies at The International Rescue Committee for the region.
U.N. officials said the safe passage of grain and any violations of the agreement must be resolved by a coordination center in Istanbul run jointly by Turkey, Russia, Ukraine and the U.N., but it has not yet been established.
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Other items are expected to take weeks to put in place, they said. The document calls for merchant ships to travel through agreed channels through the Black Sea and includes checks at Turkish ports on vessels bound for Ukraine to ensure they are not carrying weapons.
Saturday’s attack will “mean that economic operators will be extremely cautious and wait to see many days of military operations suspended before venturing to operate ships in the area,” wrote David Laborde, senior fellow at the International Food Policy Research Institute. in an email.
However, this does not mean that the deal signed on Friday will not be respected. “An agreement like this will take days, if not weeks, to be implemented, so a chaotic start does not mean its end,” Laborde said.
Despite Saturday’s missile strike, Ukraine’s infrastructure minister, Oleksandr Kubrakov, said his country would continue preparing to export agricultural goods and try to unblock its seaports.
The Ukrainian Sea Ports Authority said in a statement on Saturday that under plans for the ports to resume operations, ships would arrive and depart from the named ports in a convoy accompanied by a lead ship. The agency has published a call for applications for ships to join the convoy.
UN chief Antonio Guterres called on Moscow, Kyiv and Ankara to ensure “full implementation” of the commitments they have made “on the global stage”, his office said. “These products are desperately needed to address the global food crisis and alleviate the suffering of millions of people in need around the world,” he said.
US and European officials accused Russia of blocking exports as leverage as Moscow blamed Western sanctions and downplayed the food crisis. “The Kremlin continues to weaponize food,” U.S. Ambassador to Ukraine Bridget A. Brink said Saturday.
Dalton Bennett in Odessa, Isabel Khurshudyan in Dnipro and David L. Stern in Kyiv contributed to this report.
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