File photo: A residential building shows damage caused by the overnight attack of Russian troops that involved missiles and Shahed kamikaze drones in Odesa, southern Ukraine, in June. The region was again attacked by drones on Sunday, 3 September. Photo by Nina Liashonok / Ukrinform/Future Publishing via Getty Images
Russia carried out a “massive” drone attack targeting Ukraine’s Odesa region, Ukrainian officials said Monday, damaging a grain export hub on the Danube river.
The strikes came hours before a summit in Russia between President Vladimir Putin and Turkish leader Recep Tayyip Erdogan, who hopes to revive a grain deal Moscow exited in July aiming to safeguard Ukraine’s Black Sea exports.
“Seventeen drones were shot down by our air defence forces,” regional governor Oleg Kiper wrote on Telegram, adding there were no civilian casualties.
“But, unfortunately, there are also hits,” he said. “In several settlements of Izmail district, warehouses and production buildings, agricultural machinery and equipment of industrial enterprises were damaged.”
The Danube river port of Izmail, which borders NATO member Romania, has become a main export route for Ukrainian products following Russia’s withdrawal from the UN-brokered grain deal.
Ukraine’s military said Russia had used Iranian-made Shahed drones in the “massive” overnight attack, which “was directed at the civil infrastructure of the area of the Danube”.
The strikes come a day after Ukraine fought off a barrage of Russian drones in the same region, with Russia’s army saying Sunday it had targeted fuel storage facilities in the Danube port town of Reni.
New defence minister
Also on Sunday, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky announced he was replacing Kyiv’s defence minister Oleksiy Reznikov, calling for “new approaches” a year and a half into Russia’s invasion.
Zelensky has nominated Rustem Umerov, who has been head of the State Property Fund since last year, to replace Reznikov — subject to approval by Ukraine’s parliament.
Umerov, a leading member of the Crimean Tatar community, has represented his country in sensitive negotiations with Russia.
Earlier on Monday, Russia said it destroyed four Ukrainian military boats carrying troops in the Black Sea.
“Naval aviation aircraft of the Black Sea Fleet destroyed 4 ‘Willard Sea Force’ US-made high-speed military boats with landing groups of the Armed Forces of Ukraine,” Russia’s defence ministry said on Telegram.
The ministry said the boats were “travelling in the direction of Cape Tarkhankut on the Crimean coast”, without providing further details.
In a similar attack on August 30, Russia said its forces destroyed four Ukrainian military boats carrying up to 50 soldiers in the Black Sea.
In the early hours of Monday, the ministry said it had repelled a separate Ukrainian attack over the Black Sea.
“Ukrainian unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) were destroyed in the air over the Black Sea near the Crimean Peninsula,” it wrote on Telegram.
Crimea was last attacked on Saturday, when Russia destroyed three Ukrainian naval drones that targeted the bridge connecting the peninsula to the Russian mainland.
Crimea, annexed by Russia in 2014, has been targeted by Kyiv throughout Moscow’s Ukraine offensive but has recently come under more intense, increased attacks.
Kyiv has repeatedly said it aims to take back Crimea.
On August 24, Ukraine said it flew its flag on Crimea, in a symbolic win during a “special operation” to mark its second wartime Independence Day.
© Agence France-Presse