Ukrainian air defense was activated on Tuesday in the Odessa region (south), a key area for the grain deal suspended by Russia on Monday, local authorities said.
“Odessa. Air defense combat operations continue,” wrote an official of the regional administration, Sergiy Bratchuk, on the Telegram platform.
“The enemy is attacking the southern regions with UAVs” [drones]he added, citing the Ukrainian operational command for the south of the country.
Southern Ukraine is being targeted by “drone attacks,” regional governor Oleg Kiper said on the same platform, appealing to the population to remain in shelters until the air alert is lifted.
There are air alerts in the Odessa, Mykolaiv, Kherson, Zaporizhia, Donetsk, Kharkiv, Dnipropetrovsk, Poltava, Kirovograd and Cherkassy regions.
Odessa, with its historic center listed on UNESCO’s World Heritage List in Danger since January, has been shelled multiple times since the start of the Russian invasion on February 24, 2022.
After the start of the invasion, Ukrainian ports on the Black Sea were blocked by Russian warships until an agreement, signed in July 2022, mediated by the UN and Turkey, allowed grain exports to pass through.
Russia on Monday suspended the agreement on the export of grain through the Black Sea from Ukrainian ports, arguing that the commitments made in relation to the Russian side were not fulfilled.
The Odessa region has three ports that were part of the agreement.
Source: TSF
