Ukraine hits Novorossiysk grain terminal in unique attack, three killed

A Ukrainian drone and missile strike hit Russia’s Black Sea port city of Novorossiysk on Wednesday night, killing three people and damaging grain export terminals and a Russian naval base, BBC News reported.

The dead included an eight-year-old child, and 24 people were injured, according to the BBC report. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky confirmed Ukraine had launched rocket and underwater drones in a “unique operation” against the naval base, saying: “The occupying fleet and all the infrastructure that supports it will not be safe as long as Russian aggression continues.” He did not mention grain terminals being hit.

Most of Russia’s Black Sea fleet is docked in Novorossiysk, one of Russia’s largest ports, after leaving Sevastopol in occupied Crimea because it was too exposed to Ukrainian attacks, the BBC reported. A major grain trading company told TASS its terminal had been hit, and another told Reuters and Russian outlet RBK that its terminal had been hit.

Russia’s agriculture ministry announced on Wednesday that it was working to redirect cargo flows to Baltic and Caspian Sea ports and land routes, while “taking into account current logistical constraints.” It did not refer to Ukraine’s attacks. Repeated explosions were reported over Novorossiysk as air defences shot down aerial objects, and an emergency situation was declared after drones damaged pipelines and suspended the city’s water supply, the BBC reported.

Regional Governor Veniamin Kondratyev said one man elsewhere in Krasnodar region was killed by drone debris and that several locations were struck by “several hundred drones,” damaging dozens of buildings, including homes. The BBC also reported that Russian aerial strikes overnight between Tuesday and Wednesday killed at least 11 civilians, most in Zaporizhzhia, which Russia hit with ballistic missiles and glide bombs.

After a period of relative calm in the Black Sea, Kyiv and Moscow resumed attacks on ports and shipping this summer, the BBC reported. Russian strikes have affected Ukraine’s remaining sea route through Odesa, while recent Ukrainian attacks in the eastern Black Sea have disrupted Russian grain shipments; Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova accused Ukraine of striking Russian grain and agricultural infrastructure and said Moscow would continue hitting “facilities that [Ukraine's armed forces] use on the Black Sea to destabilise the navigation situation” until “the full elimination of threats to security projected to the Sea of Azov and the Black Sea.”