Kyiv, Ukraine (AP) — A nighttime Russian missile attack has begun Odessa have killed at least four people, including a 16-year-old girl, regional authorities said Friday, in the latest of a series of attacks this week on the southern Ukrainian region likely aimed at the country’s grain exports.
Four Russian missile and drone strikes on the Odessa region this week killed 14 people and injured about 20, according to local officials. The attacks hit merchant ships and damaged port infrastructure in the region, which is a vital hub for Ukraine’s agricultural exports through the Black Sea.
An attack on Odesa late Wednesday killed nine people and hit a Panamanian-flagged container ship — the third attack on a merchant ship in four days, according to regional Governor Oleh Kiper.
Russia’s apparent attempt to frustrate Ukrainian exports, which provide crucial revenue to a crisis-hit national economy more than two years of warcoincided with A renewed pressure from Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky to ensure continued military and financial support from his country’s Western partners.
Russia last year an agreement torn apart allowing Ukraine – one of the world’s largest suppliers of grain and other basic food products, especially to developing countries – to export products safely through the Black Sea.
Months later, and amid successful Ukrainian attacks on the Russian Black Sea Fleet, which forced the Russian Navy to withdraw from the coast, a shipping corridor established that embraces the coast as far as Turkey and opens a road to the Mediterranean Sea.
A special insurance program has provided affordable coverage to shippers moving millions of tons of cargo from Ukraine, but the latest attacks could jeopardize that arrangement.
___