Russia has dealt a major blow in the grain war: its drones attacked the main Ukrainian port on the Danube, Izmail, a crucial infrastructure for Kiev’s exports after the blockade re-imposed by Moscow on the Black Sea. The damage was enormous, dozens of ships had to stop before docking, and the alarm went off in Romania, a NATO country whose borders are on the opposite bank of the river.
Even Recep Tayyp Erdogan expressed concern about this escalation. The Turkish leader, the main mediator of the wheat pact which expired in mid-July, spoke on the phone with Vladimir Putin. Asking the Russian president to re-enter the agreement or at least not to “further raise the tension”.
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The river port of Izmail, in the Odessa region, which together with that of Reni has become the main exit hub for Ukrainian agricultural products, was hit by the Russians during the night. In the following hours, the Ukrainian army released a video showing a major fire in a building of a shipping company, other structures seriously damaged, while grain was leaking from at least two destroyed silos. There were no casualties, but loading operations were suspended and foreign merchant ships dropped anchor at the mouth of the Danube.
According to the Ukrainian Ministry of Infrastructure, this raid cost 40,000 tons of grain, which was directed to China, Israel and Africa. And prices on the international market have soared, so much so that Volodymyr Zelensky has spoken of an “attack on world food security”. Yet another attack, if one considers that Moscow, since it tore up the pact on exports with Kiev last July 17, has hit 26 Ukrainian port structures, destroying up to 180,000 tons of cereals in just a few days.
This time, however, the Russian firepower has widened dangerously, approaching the borders of NATO. On the opposite bank of Izmail, just three kilometers away, there is in fact Romania, which has protested at the highest level. President Klaus Iohannis called these attacks near the border “unacceptable”.
The wheat dossier was the focus of a telephone conversation between Erdogan and Putin. Between the two leaders, despite the excellent relations and the Tsar’s willingness to visit Turkey, the positions on this dossier remain distant. The Turkish president believes that “the end of the agreement for exports from Ukraine, after the exit of Russia, will not benefit anyone”. Instead, Moscow does not seem willing to take steps backwards.
The Kremlin has announced that it will rejoin the pact “as soon as the West actually fulfills all its obligations towards Russia”, i.e. the elimination of export restrictions on its cereals and fertilizers. And in Putin’s view, raids on Ukrainian ports can serve as an incentive in this direction. Just the Odessa region, where the main Ukrainian port of call in the Black Sea is located, was the subject of another series of attacks by the invasion forces, which also affected the Kiev oblast and the capital, with Iranian-made drones .
On the other hand, the Ukrainian media reported explosions at the Russian military base in Crimea, while car traffic on the Kerch bridge already hit by Ukrainian forces was temporarily suspended, without explanation. In the evening, among other things, the defense minister announced the limitation of navigation on the strait of the same name. Meanwhile, Russia has announced military exercises in the Baltic, with 30 warships and naval vessels, more than 30 aircraft and about 6,000 soldiers. And it was precisely in this area that a new episode of tension between Poland and Belarus was recorded. Warsaw denounced that two Minsk helicopters flew over its airspace, and protested by summoning Lukashenko’s charge d’affaires.
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