Attack on Odesa a ‘spit in the face’ from Putin
Vladimir Putin has “spat in the face” of the UN by firing missiles at Odesa just a day after the Kremlin signed a deal to allow grain exports from the port, Ukrainian officials said.
Kalibr cruise missiles were fired from warships in the Black Sea at infrastructure used to store grain and load it onto cargo ships, according to the Ukrainian air force.
Video footage showed a fire at the port but there were conflicting reports over whether the two missiles had hit a grain storage facility in the mid-morning attack. There were no casualties.
Another video posted online showed sunbathers on a beach near Odesa watching the city’s missile defence system destroy several other Russian rockets in the sky.
“Here is the grain corridor.
“These scumbags sign contracts with one hand and direct missiles with the other,” said Oleksiy Goncharenko, a Ukrainian MP.
Russia has denied the attacks and said it only fires missiles at military facilities in Odesa.
The city is home to the largest port in Ukraine and is the main export terminal for grain. It was expected to reopen soon as part of a grain export deal signed with Russia in Istanbul on Saturday.
But Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said the strike showed Moscow would renege on the agreement. “This proves only one thing: no matter what Russia says and promises, it will find ways not to implement it,” he aid.
Oleg Nikolenko, his foreign ministry spokesman, said the attack was “Putin’s spit in the face of UN secretary general Antonio Guterres and Turkish president Recep Tayyip Erdogan, who made enormous efforts to reach the agreement”.
He added: “If the reached agreement is not fulfilled, Russia will bear full responsibility for deepening the global food crisis.”
Ukrainian officials said they were continuing to work on restarting exports despite the strikes.
Guterres “unequivocally condemned” the attacks, which could potentially derail grain reaching vulnerable countries in Africa where millions of people are reliant on it as a major part of their diet.
“These products are desperately needed to address the global food crisis and ease the suffering of millions of people in need around the globe,” the UN said in a statement.
Bridget Brink, the US ambassador to Kyiv, called the strike “outrageous”, adding: “The Kremlin continues to weaponise food. Russia must be held to account.”
Moscow has denied responsibility for grain shortages around the world and rising prices. It has blamed Western sanctions for slowing fertiliser imports and Ukraine for mining its own Black Sea waters.
Elsewhere in Ukraine, Russian missiles killed three people in the Kirovograd region of central Ukraine, hundreds of miles behind the frontlines.
Missiles also pounded the city of Mykolaiv, which has been targeted by Russia for weeks.
Telegraph Group Ltd