Volodymyr Zelensky, Ukraine’s President, has stated that yesterday’s Russian shelling of the Odesa region destroyed 60,000 tonnes of grain waiting to be transported to China.
“The ports that were attacked today store about a million tonnes of food. It was to be delivered to countries in Africa and Asia long ago. In the port terminal, which suffered the most from Russian terror this night, 60,000 tonnes of agricultural products were stored, which were intended for shipment to China,” Zelensky said in his evening address.
Zelensky said that the 19 July attack on Odesa was “perhaps the biggest attempt to cause pain to the city since the start of the invasion”. Not only Ukraine was the target of the strike, he said, as the ports stored about a million tonnes of food for African and Asian countries, he added.
The Russian military attacked Ukrainian cities with Shahed drones and cruise missiles in the early hours of 19 July. At least 10 people were injured in the city. Russia’s Defence Ministry confirmed the strike, claiming it had targeted military infrastructure, fuel depots, and ammo warehouses. Mykola Solsky, Ukraine’s Minister of Agrarian Policy and Food, says facilities used in the grain deal had been targeted.
