Russia launches fourth attack in five days on food exports in Izmail

Russia has maintained its bombing campaign against Ukrainian food exports with the fourth drone attack in five days on grain silos and other infrastructure around the port of Izmail along the Danube river.

- Shaun Walker, Julian Borger 

The governor of the Odesa region, Oleh Kiper, said yesterday's attack lasted three hours, and the general prosecutor's office said two truck drivers were hurt and several homes damaged by blast waves. The Ukrainian military said agricultural facilities were damaged but did not give details.

Vladimir Putin has sought to cut off Ukrainian exports of cereals since July, when he walked out from the Black Sea grain initiative which had been brokered by the UN and Turkey to allow safe passage for ships carrying Ukrainian grain. The collapse of the initiative caused a rise in global grain prices with a direct impact on humanitarian supplies to areas of potential famine, but the Turkish president, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, failed to persuade Putin to return to the agreement at a meeting on Monday in the Russian resort of Sochi.

Russia has focused bombing raids on Izmail, the main Ukrainian port along the Danube, from where grain has been loaded on to ships which have taken cargo out through Romanian, Bulgarian and Turkish territorial waters, as well as westwards by river to the rest of Europe.

The bombing of grain facilities came as the Kremlin criticised the US for its decision to supply depleted uranium tank rounds to Ukraine, calling it a "criminal act".

Sergei Ryabkov, a Russian deputy foreign minister, said it was "a reflection of Washington's outrageous disregard for the environmental consequences of using these kind of munitions in a war zone".