Russia Strikes Ukrainian Ports That Were Making Seaborne Drones


Is Russia upping the ante???

They sort of did that after the last time the Crimea bridge was bombed.

Reuters:

Russia struck Ukrainian ports on Tuesday, a day after pulling out of a U.N.-backed deal to let Kyiv export grain, and Moscow claimed gains on the ground in an area where Ukrainian officials said Russian forces were going back on the offensive.

Russia said it hit fuel storage in Odesa and a plant making seaborne drones there, as part of “mass revenge strikes” in retaliation for attacks by Ukraine that knocked out its road bridge to the occupied Crimean Peninsula.

Shortly after the bridge was hit on Monday, Moscow withdrew from a year-old U.N.-brokered grain export deal, a move the United Nations said risked creating hunger around the world.

Falling debris and blast waves damaged several homes and unspecified port infrastructure in one of Ukraine’s main ports, Odesa, according to Ukraine’s southern operational military command. Local authorities in Mykolaiv, another port, described a serious fire there.

The Russian attacks on ports provide “further proof that the country-terrorist wants to endanger the lives of 400 million people in various countries that depend on Ukrainian food exports”, said Andriy Yermak, the head of Ukraine’s presidential staff.

Ukraine’s air force said six Kalibr missiles and 31 out of 36 drones were shot down. Moscow, for its part, said it had foiled a Ukrainian drone strike on Crimea, with no major damage on the ground, and reopened a single lane of road traffic on the Crimea bridge.

Six weeks since Ukraine launched a counteroffensive in the east and south, Russia is mounting a ground offensive of its own in the northeast.

Russia’s defence ministry said its forces had advanced 2 km (1.2 miles) in the vicinity of Kupiansk, a frontline railway hub recaptured by Ukraine in an offensive last year. Kyiv acknowledged a “complicated” situation in the area. Reuters could not independently verify the situation.

Since Ukraine began its counteroffensive last month, Kyiv has recaptured some villages in the south and territory around the ruined city of Bakhmut in the east, but has yet to attempt a major breakthrough across heavily defended Russian lines.

Ukraine’s counteroffensive has made limited gains near Bakhmut and along two major axes in the south, but its assault force equipped with billions of dollars worth of new Western weapons and ammunition has yet to confront the main Russian defensive line.

Kyiv says it is deliberately advancing slowly to avoid high casualties on fortified defensive lines strewn with landmines, and is focused for now on degrading Russia’s logistics and command. Moscow says the Ukrainian counteroffensive has failed.

But they do have high casualties?

And they also said it was going to be a Blitz?