Russia for the first time on Monday directed its attacks against the Ukrainian agricultural sector towards a port on the Danube River, destroying several grain warehouses in Ukraine.. In turn, they have also attacked the Crimean peninsula and the Russian capital with drones, in what Moscow described as an “act of international terrorism.”
The attack took place against the port of Reni on the Danube River with some 15 Iranian Shahed-136 drones, according to the head of this community bordering Romania, Igor Plejov, quoted by the Reni-Odessa information portal. The shelling lasted almost four hours into the early morning, the Southern Command of the Ukrainian Armed Forces said.
According to the Ukrainian Prosecutor's Office, at least four grain warehouses, oil and fuel storage depots, and an administrative building were damaged or destroyed.
The target: Danube ports
The head of the Military Administration of the Odessa region, Oleg Kiper, explained in turn that six people were injured, one of them in a relatively serious condition.
The Danube River is one of the alternative transport routes for Ukrainian cereals facing the Black Sea -turned back into a conflict zone after Russia canceled navigation guarantees-, although insufficient to compensate for the volumes that were sent through Turkey to other parts of the world.
Ukraine's President Volodymyr Zelensky said late Sunday that he was already preparing new aid packages with Western partners to improve the country's air defense and receive more artillery and long-range weapons. In addition, he announced the convening of a meeting on Wednesday of the NATO-Ukraine Council to discuss the steps to be taken to unblock the grain corridor in the Black Sea.
Attacks against Moscow and Crimea
Ukraine did not remain without a response to the Russian attacks and carried out two drone bombing attacks on Crimea and Moscow at dawn. The mayor of the Russian capital, Sergei Sobyanin, reported “drone attacks on two non-residential buildings” in the city.
The Russian Ministry of Defense claimed to have thwarted “an attempt by the kyiv regime to carry out a terrorist attack with two unmanned aerial devices against facilities in Moscow.” One of the drones landed in a central residential area where several buildings of the Military Intelligence Directorate are located, and another in a business center under construction.
At 17 Komsomolski Avenue, near a military university, the impact caused windows to break in at least two shops, one of them specializing in the sale of Crimean wines.
The last attacks against Moscow took place on July 4 and June 21, but the most notorious occurred in May against various residential buildings and, above all, against the Kremlin. According to the Ukrainian daily Ukrainska Pravda, the attack on the Russian capital was a special operation by Ukrainian Military Intelligence.
international terrorism
The spokeswoman for the Russian Foreign Ministry, Maria Zajárova, described the attack as an “act of international terrorism”, while her counterpart in the Kremlin, Dmitri Peskov, assured that Russia will continue the war in Ukraine until it achieves its objectives.
In parallel there was another attack with at least 17 drones against the annexed Crimean peninsula. Russia shot them down, but one hit an ammunition depot in the northern Dzhankoi region, Governor Sergei Axionov said.
The bombardment forced the temporary suspension of rail and automobile traffic in the area and the evacuation of the population of nearby villages within a 5-kilometre radius. Ukraine's Minister for Digital Transformation Mikhailo Fedorov confirmed the attacks on Crimea and Moscow, suggesting “there will be more”.