A Ukrainian was killed and five foreigners were injured in a Russian missile attack on the Black Sea port of Odessa that hit a civilian boat, prosecutors announced Tuesday.
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The Black Sea is an important trade route for Ukraine, one of the world's largest grain producers and exporters, but has become a naval battleground since the Russian invasion of Ukraine began in February 2022.
The Ukrainian Prosecutor General's Office said in a statement that the missile attack occurred on Monday evening, and hit a boat flying the flag of Palau, an archipelago in the Pacific Ocean.
The prosecution added that a 60-year-old employee of a logistics company was killed and five foreign members of the boat’s crew were injured, and the nationality of the injured was not determined.
Russia also launched a drone attack in the Odessa region overnight from Monday to Tuesday, damaging a residential building and a business in the coastal city of Chornomorsk near Odessa, the prosecutor's office said.
The governor of the region, Oleg Kiper, added in a press statement, “The Russian aggressors (…) terrorized the Odessa region for four hours with their combat drones.”
He added that the drone attack did not result in any casualties, but it caused fires in several apartments in the damaged building, stressing that “most” of the drones were able to be shot down by air defenses.
Despite Moscow's threats to fire on boats sailing in the region, Ukraine established a corridor in the Black Sea in the summer of 2023 to export its agricultural products, especially grains.
On September 11, another ship, the cargo ship Aya, flying the flag of St. Kitts and Nevis, a Caribbean country, and carrying wheat to Egypt, was bombed by a Russian missile in international waters in the Black Sea, after leaving the port of Chornomorsk. .
The accident caused serious damage but no casualties.
According to the British Ministry of Defence, it is “almost certain” that the ship was hit by a Russian AS-4 KITCHEN anti-ship cruise missile.
However, “Aya is unlikely to be the target” of this attack, according to the ministry’s estimates, which raises the hypothesis that there was a Russian mistake in the targeting.
