Russia has warned it will treat all vessels heading to Ukraine’s ports as military threats, signalling its intent to reimpose a naval blockade on Ukraine in a move that sent European and US grain futures soaring.
The announcement followed Russia’s decision this week to withdraw from last year’s UN-brokered agreement to allow Ukrainian Black Sea grain exports to continue despite the war.
Since then Moscow has stepped up pressure on the Ukrainian port city of Odesa, launching a second night of attacks on what is the hub for much of the country’s grain exports.
“All vessels heading to Ukrainian ports in Black Sea waters will be regarded as potentially carrying military cargo,” the Russian defence ministry said on Wednesday. “The countries whose flags such vessels are carrying will be regarded as ones involved in the Ukrainian conflict on the side of Kyiv.”
Wheat, maize and rapeseed futures on Paris-based Euronext all hit multi-month highs, closing 7.8, 5.7 and 5.6 per cent up respectively. Wheat futures in Chicago rose by almost 8 per cent to $7.25 a bushel. Traders said the joint request of Bulgaria, Hungary, Poland, Romania and Slovakia to the EU to extend a ban on Ukrainian grain imports beyond a September deadline also pushed prices higher.
The overnight onslaught on Odesa was described by Ukrainian officials as an attempt by Moscow to choke off grain exports to global food markets. They followed Russian president Vladimir Putin’s pledge to punish Kyiv for a Monday drone attack that damaged the Crimean bridge connecting the occupied peninsula to Russian territory, which Moscow blamed on Ukraine.
“It was the most hellish night,” Serhiy Bratchuk, spokesperson for Odesa’s military administration, said in a video address on Wednesday. Footage posted on social media showed huge explosions rocking what was one of Ukraine’s most cosmopolitan cities before Putin launched his full-scale invasion just over 500 days ago.
Ukraine’s air force said 37 out of the 63 missiles and drones that had been aimed at “critical infrastructure and military facilities” were intercepted, adding that Odesa had been the main target.
Odesa’s governor Oleg Kiper said “dozens of missiles and attack drones” hit the region.
“A grain and oil terminal were hit” in addition to civilian buildings, hotels and tourist sites damaged by falling debris that injured at least six civilians, he added. Grain export infrastructure was also destroyed at Chornomorsk, south of Odesa, said Mykola Solsky, Ukraine’s agriculture minister.
Mykhailo Podolyak, an adviser in Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskyy’s administration, said Russia “deliberately and intentionally struck at grain terminals and other port facilities . . . to destroy the possibility of shipping Ukrainian grain”.
In his Twitter post, Podolyak asked whether the UN leadership would take action against “the deliberate act of terrorism committed by Russian Federation against the global food programme”.
“Does this determine whether there will be hunger in some of your countries?” Zelenskyy said in an interview with African journalists released on Tuesday.
Ukraine’s armed forces, meanwhile, claimed incremental gains in a counteroffensive launched early last month that has struggled to liberate eastern and southern regions from Russian forces.
Hanna Maliar, Ukraine’s deputy defence minister, said a days-long Russian offensive towards the north-eastern town of Kupyansk had failed, adding that “the initiative is now on our side”.
She and other military officials also claimed unspecified small gains near the bombed-out eastern city of Bakhmut and in southern frontline areas north of the Azov Sea.
Sergei Aksyonov, the Russian-installed leader of Crimea, announced the evacuation of more than 2,000 people and the closure of a motorway near a military training ground where explosions erupted for many hours overnight. He did not give an explanation for what had triggered what appeared to be the detonation of a weapons depot, nor did Ukrainian officials take credit for a strike at the site.
Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said Putin had received a report about the fire. “Measures are being taken, the situation is being clarified,” he said.