Ukraine’s Black Sea port of Odesa has endured a second “hellish night” of attacks, with loud explosions audible throughout the city in the early hours of Wednesday and at least one missile landing within the city limits, as Russia targeted grain facilities and port infrastructure.
Ukraine’s air force said Russia launched 63 missiles and drones at various targets across the country, of which 37 had been shot down, suggesting that more of Russia’s missiles got through air defences than has been the case in recent weeks.
Odesa bore the brunt of the onslaught; the attack on the city was “very powerful, truly massive”, Serhiy Bratchuk, a spokesperson for the Odesa military administration, said on his Telegram channel on Wednesday. “It was a hellish night,” he added.
On Wednesday morning, residents inspected a huge crater close to a dormitory building across the street from a grain facility not far from central Odesa. An investigator on the scene said it had most likely been caused by an Oniks, designed as an anti-ship cruise missile.
Windows in the dormitory, as well as a courthouse across the street, were blown out, but remarkably people on the scene said there had been no casualties in the strike.
There were reports of injuries in other strikes, including a nine-year-old boy who was treated for injuries caused by shattered glass and other debris.
One strike hit a wholesale market and storage facility just outside the city. Video taken overnight showed a raging blaze and fireworks stored in the facility going off above the warehouse. Smoke was still rising on Wednesday morning, as firefighters worked to put out the blaze.
Ukraine’s southern military command said Russia had used a range of missiles, including the Kh-22, designed to target aircraft carriers, against Odesa’s port infrastructure.
“[The strike] hit a grain and oil terminal, damaged tanks and equipment for loading, a fire started. All relevant services are working to deal with the consequences,” the military said.
Russia also attacked Kyiv with Iranian-made Shahed drones, but according to the city’s military administration all the drones were intercepted by air defence and there were no casualties.
However, the focus of the attacks remained on Odesa, which has come under intense fire since Russia pulled out of the Black Sea grain initiative on Monday, a deal that for the past year has allowed shipments of grain to leave Odesa’s ports bound for markets across the world. Russia had also promised retaliation for an explosion that damaged the Kerch Bridge, which links Russia with occupied Crimea, killing two people.
On Tuesday, Russia’s defence ministry said it had hit military targets in southern Ukraine as “a mass revenge strike” for the attack on the bridge.
Mykhailo Podolyak, an adviser to the Ukrainian president, Volodymyr Zelenskiy, described the attacks on Odesa as part of a concerted Russian effort to prevent Ukrainian grain reaching world markets.
“Today’s massive and combined attack on Odesa absolutely concretely recorded the attitude of the Russian Federation to ‘food security’. The Russian Federation deliberately and purposefully struck grain terminals and other port facilities. The main task is to destroy the possibility of sending Ukrainian grain. These are direct strikes on civilian infrastructure and the civilian population and blows to the global food programme,” he wrote on social media.
Russia doubled down on its threats to stop traffic to Odesa and other destinations on Wednesday, saying that from midnight “all vessels sailing in the waters of the Black Sea to Ukrainian ports will be regarded as potential carriers of military cargo.”
“Accordingly, the countries of such vessels will be considered to be involved in the Ukrainian conflict on the side of the [Kyiv] regime,” the ministry wrote.
The statements would mark an extraordinary escalation if civilian ships traveling to Ukrainian ports are targeted by Russia.
On Tuesday, the USAid head, Samantha Power, visited Odesa, and in a press conference inside the port, promised $250m (£194m) of US support for Ukraine to develop alternative export routes.
“This is a life-and-death decision that Putin has made … Vladimir Putin might be willing to inflict this humanitarian pain on innocents but the US is not,” said Power.
Odesa, a historic city whose centre has recently been put on Unesco’s list of world heritage in danger, has been targeted since the start of the war, but has largely escaped serious damage. This week’s strikes have been the most intense for months, however, and have left many residents without sleep and worried.
“My mother is 80 years old, and she didn’t sleep at all in the night and spent it in the cellar of her house. She’s 80 years old and she’s hiding in a cellar from Russian missiles,” said the city’s mayor, Gennadiy Trukhanov, in an interview on Tuesday.
“Fountains, cafes and restaurants are working and it seems like normal life is back, but actually everyone inside is scared,” he said.
