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The Danube delta became an immediate alternative waterway for grain ships after Russia pulled out of the Black Sea grain agreement in July, threatening all ships moving to and from Ukraine and resuming its blockade of major Ukrainian ports along the sea, such as Odesa.
But Russia soon began attacking the smaller ports on the Danube as well, bombing Ukrainian grain-loading facilities there. In mid-August, granaries and warehouses in Reni and Izmail, another port on the river, were damaged as a result of Russian attacks.
In an attempt to get exports moving again, Kyiv established a temporary corridor hugging the western Black Sea coast from Ukraine to Turkey, to allow passage for civilian ships that have been stuck in Ukrainian ports since before Russia’s full-scale invasion.
A handful of vessels have used the corridor in recent weeks, and President Volodymyr Zelensky of Ukraine said on Saturday that two more ships had successfully navigated passage. He later hailed Odesa as “a port on which the lives of various nations depends” in his overnight address, just hours before the latest strikes.
The attacks in the Odesa region came amid international efforts to revive the grain deal. Russia has been touting what it casts an alternative to the agreement, which was brokered by the United Nations and Turkey and helped stabilize food prices across the world but which Moscow complained was carried out unfairly.
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