Ukraine’s Foreign Minister, Andrii Sybiha, has described Russia’s missile strike on the Black Sea port of Odesa, which damaged a grain vessel and killed four people, as an attack on global food security.
Sybiha made this statement on Wednesday on X, adding that the vessel had been due to deliver wheat to Algeria.
Ukraine’s Deputy Prime Minister, Oleksiy Kuleba, said on Telegram that a ballistic missile struck the MJ Pinar bulk carrier while it was loading wheat for Algeria, killing four Syrian nationals and injuring another Syrian and a Ukrainian.
According to global grain merchant Louis Dreyfus Company, in an emailed statement, the vessel had been loading at its Brooklyn-Kyiv terminal at Odesa port, with terminal infrastructure also sustaining damage.
The company confirmed that its terminal employees were safe, with the deceased among the crew of the chartered vessel.
Ukraine, like Russia, is a major grain exporter and has managed to re-establish large-scale maritime exports during the war, despite Russian strikes on its ports.
Andriy Klymenko, from the Institute of Black Sea Strategic Studies, warned that Russia would continue attacking Ukrainian ports.
“(We) predicted and warned that Russia would continue and intensify its attacks on Ukrainian Black Sea and Danube ports in an attempt to stop the operation of the maritime corridor and simultaneously create conditions for increasing its own maritime grain exports,” Klymenko wrote on Facebook.
He noted that between January and October last year, at least 113 Russian attacks had been recorded on port, energy, and other infrastructure in the Odesa region, which includes the sea corridor.
“At the end of 2024, for the first time, seven foreign vessels were damaged as a result of these attacks,” he added.
The Ukrainian sea corridor has been operational since autumn 2023. As of December, 3,500 vessels had exported 93.3 million metric tonnes of cargo via the route.
