Russian forces have struck Ukraine\u2019s southern Black Sea port of Odesa, damaging port facilities and a ship, the region\u2019s governor says.<\/p>\n
The attack late on Monday followed another at the weekend when Moscow carried out a sustained barrage of drones and missile attacks on the wider area around Odesa, which is home to ports crucial to Ukraine\u2019s overseas trade and fuel imports. They followed Russian threats to cut \u201cUkraine off from the sea\u201d.<\/p>\n list of 4 items<\/span>end of list<\/span><\/section>\n The escalation in Russia\u2019s assault on Odesa, Ukraine\u2019s biggest port city, has unfolded as Washington steps up diplomatic efforts to bring an end to the war. Ukrainian officials met members of a US delegation on Friday in Florida while US envoys held talks with Russian representatives on Saturday.<\/p>\n \u201cThe situation in the Odesa region is harsh due to Russian strikes on port infrastructure and logistics,\u201d Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy told reporters in Kyiv on Monday. \u201cRussia is once again trying to restrict Ukraine\u2019s access to the sea and block our coastal regions.\u201d<\/p>\n On Tuesday, the head of the Odesa Regional Military Administration, Oleh Kiper, said Russian strikes overnight had damaged a civilian cargo vessel and a warehouse in a district of Odesa while the roof of a two-storey residential building had caught fire.<\/p>\n Meanwhile, strikes on Saturday on the port of Pivdennyi near Odesa damaged storage reservoirs, Ukrainian Deputy Prime Minister Oleksii Kuleba said. Those came just one day after a ballistic missile strike, also in Pivdennyi, had killed eight people and wounded at least 30.<\/p>\n These are just the latest strikes in an escalation of hostilities in the area over the past few weeks.<\/p>\n Last week, Russia launched one of its largest aerial assaults of the war on the Black Sea region, damaging energy infrastructure and causing a power outage in Odesa, leaving hundreds of thousands of residents without electricity for several days.<\/p>\n Russia\u2019s Ministry of Defence did not immediately comment on the strikes, but the Kremlin has previously described Ukraine\u2019s economic infrastructure as a \u201clegitimate military objective\u201d during the nearly four-year war.<\/p>\n On the Telegram messaging app, Kuleba said on Friday that Russian forces were targeting power infrastructure and a bridge over the Dniester River near the village of Mayaky, southwest of Pivdennyi, which was struck five times in 24 hours.<\/p>\n That bridge links parts of the region separated by waterways and serves as the primary westbound route to border crossings with Moldova. It is currently out of operation. Kuleba said the route normally carries about 40 percent of Ukraine\u2019s fuel supplies.<\/p>\n \u201cThe focus of the war may have shifted towards Odesa,\u201d Kuleba said, warning that the \u201ccrazy\u201d attacks could intensify as Russia tries to weaken Ukraine\u2019s economy.<\/p>\n Russian President Vladimir Putin has previously said Moscow wants to restrict Ukraine\u2019s Black Sea access in retaliation for Kyiv\u2019s recent drone attacks on Russia\u2019s sanctions-evading \u201cshadow fleet\u201d\u00a0of vessels, which carry a variety of commodities.<\/p>\n Ukraine said those vessels are used to illegally export sanctioned oil, which provides Russia with its main source of revenue for financing its full-scale invasion of its neighbour.<\/p>\n Odesa\u2019s port has long been central to Ukraine\u2019s economy. Called a \u201cpearl by the sea\u201d, Odesa is Ukraine\u2019s third most populous city after Kyiv and Kharkiv.<\/p>\n Black Sea ports \u2013 including Odesa and two others close by, Pivdennyi and Chornomorsk \u2013 and Mykolaiv to the east handled more than 70 percent of Ukraine\u2019s exports before the war.<\/p>\n But Odesa\u2019s role as a trading hub has grown in recent years as ports in the Zaporizhia, Kherson and Mykolaiv regions have been occupied by Russia.<\/p>\n Since the war began in February 2022, Ukraine has continued to rank among the world\u2019s top five exporters of wheat and corn \u2013 largely through Odesa.<\/p>\n By targeting Odesa\u2019s shipping facilities with missiles and drones, Ukrainian officials said, Putin aims to destroy Ukrainian trade and business infrastructure.<\/p>\n Zelenskyy, who has previously accused Russia of \u201csowing chaos\u201d on the people of Odesa, said: \u201cEveryone must see that without pressure on Russia, they have no intention of genuinely ending their aggression.\u201d<\/p>\n If the port of Odesa were badly damaged, the economic impact for Ukraine would be severe. The city and its surrounding areas would suffer major job losses in the shipping and logistics industries, seriously squeezing local incomes. Meanwhile, port-dependent businesses would falter and investment would fall away.<\/p>\n Nationally, Ukraine\u2019s export capacity would be hit hard. As a key gateway for grain and other commodities, disruptions there would raise transport costs, slow shipments and reduce export volumes, choking foreign currency earnings and piling pressure on the hryvnia, Ukraine\u2019s currency.<\/p>\n Elsewhere, farmers would suffer from lower prices for their produce as well as storage bottlenecks with knock-on effects across rural economies. The government would also lose customs revenue just as reconstruction costs would rise, weakening the country\u2019s overall economic resilience.<\/p>\n Over the past six months, maritime warfare between Ukraine and Russia has intensified. Both sides have targeted naval and commercial assets across the Black Sea and beyond.<\/p>\n Ukrainian forces have increasingly used underwater drones and unmanned surface vessels to strike ships tied to Russia\u2019s shadow fleet.<\/p>\n Several shadow fleet tankers, including the Kairos and Virat, were hit by Ukrainian naval drones in the Black Sea near Turkish waters in late November.<\/p>\n Kyiv has expanded its reach elsewhere, claiming drone strikes in the Mediterranean on December 19 on the Qendil, a Russian-linked tanker, marking an expansion in Kyiv\u2019s maritime operations.<\/p>\n At the same time, Russian forces have ramped up attacks on commercial targets, including a Turkish-flagged ship carrying trucks and other freight near Odesa with drone attacks on December 13.<\/p>\n These actions reflect a shift towards what is referred to as \u201casymmetric naval warfare\u201d, in which drones and improvised systems play a growing role in disrupting each side\u2019s economic and military support networks at sea, experts said.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n Russian forces have struck Ukraine\u2019s southern Black Sea port of Odesa, damaging port facilities and a ship, the region\u2019s governor says. The attack late on Monday followed another at the weekend when Moscow carried out a sustained barrage of drones and missile attacks on the wider area around Odesa, which is home to ports crucial […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":6337,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-6336","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-explained"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/inernews.online\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6336","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/inernews.online\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/inernews.online\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inernews.online\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inernews.online\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=6336"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/inernews.online\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6336\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inernews.online\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/6337"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/inernews.online\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=6336"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inernews.online\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=6336"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inernews.online\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=6336"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}Recommended Stories <\/h2>\n
What happened in the latest Russian attack on Odesa?<\/h2>\n
![\"INTERACTIVE-WHO](\"https:\/\/www.aljazeera.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/02\/INTERACTIVE-WHO-CONTROLS-WHAT-IN-UKRAINE-1765877913.png?quality=80\")
Why is Russia targeting Odesa?<\/h2>\n
How important is the port of Odesa to Ukraine?<\/h2>\n
What would it mean for Ukraine if Odesa were destroyed?<\/h2>\n
What other acts of maritime warfare have Ukraine and Russia engaged in during the war?<\/h2>\n
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