Ukraine and Russia yesterday launched missile and drone attacks on vessels in the Black Sea and the Sea of Azov, stepping up hostilities in a zone vital for grain exports that have triggered a rise in global wheat prices.
Ukraine’s military said it struck six Russian tankers and two tugboats, while Russia’s defence ministry said its forces hit a maritime vessel and a speedboat of the Ukrainian armed forces while they were en route to ports in the Odesa region.
Russian forces also struck a number of other military and industrial targets, the ministry said. Russia also has intensified strikes on Ukraine’s deepwater Black Sea ports in the Greater Odesa area, which handle much of the country’s grain and other cargo and are vital to its wartime economy.
The Ukrainian attacks have forced Russia, the world’s top grain exporter, to limit shipping in the Sea of Azov — a route that handles about a quarter of its grain exports, sources told Reuters. Shipping remained restricted yesterday, they said.
“Navigation both to and from the sea is not being carried out for now,” a source said. Separately, Russian and Ukrainian strikes killed five people on both sides of the war border, officials said yesterday.
Meanwhile, large protests erupted in several Ukrainian cities yesterday morning against the removal of popular Defence Minister Mykhailo Fedorov.
AFP reporters in Kyiv saw more than a thousand people gathered on a central square, singing the Ukrainian national anthem, waving Ukrainian and EU flags and chanting “shame” and “bring Fedorov back.
Only appointed six months ago, Fedorov carved a reputation as a moderniser who tried to reform the Ukrainian military. His removal risks throwing uncertainty into the army at a time when Ukraine in one of its best positions in the war for months, having halted the pace of the Russian advance and pounding Russian oil and military sites with long-range drones.
