Russia escalates assaults on key Ukrainian area of Odesa

[ad_1] Russia has intensified its strikes on the southern Ukrainian area of Odesa, inflicting widespread energy cuts and threatening the area's maritime infrastructure.

Ukrainian Deputy Prime Minister Oleksiy Kuleba mentioned Moscow was finishing up "systematic" assaults on the area. Final week, he warned that the main focus of the warfare "might have shifted in direction of Odesa".

President Volodymyr Zelensky mentioned the repeated assaults have been an try by Moscow to dam Ukraine's entry to maritime logistics.

Earlier in December, Russian President Vladimir Putin threatened to sever Ukraine's entry to the ocean as retaliation for drone assaults on tankers of Russia's "shadow fleet" within the Black Sea.

"Shadow fleet" is a time period that refers to lots of of tankers utilized by Russia to bypass Western sanctions imposed after its full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022.

On Sunday night time within the Odesa area, strikes minimize off electrical energy for 120,000 folks and sparked a hearth at a significant port which destroyed dozens of containers of flour and vegetable oil.

It was the newest in a sequence of lots of of strikes which have disrupted energy provides within the area for days on finish and prompted a number of casualties.

Final week, a ballistic missile strike on the Pivdenniy port east of Odesa killed eight folks and injured no less than 30.

One other assault earlier within the week killed a girl who was travelling in a automobile together with her three kids and briefly minimize off the Odesa area's solely bridge linking Ukraine and Moldova.

Zelensky indicated a brand new commander of the air pressure for the area can be chosen quickly following the dismissal of Dmytro Karpenko over the weekend.

Odesa's port has at all times been key for the nation's financial system. Town is Ukraine's third largest after Kyiv and Kharkiv. It now occupies strategic significance as different ports within the Zaporizhzhia, Kherson and Mykolayiv areas are inaccessible to Ukraine attributable to Russian occupation.

Regardless of the warfare, Ukraine stays one of many world's high exporters of wheat and corn.

Since August 2023, Odesa has been the place to begin of a vital hall that permits it to export grain in another country, following the coastlines of Romania and Bulgaria earlier than reaching Turkey.

Zelensky, who has beforehand accused Russia of "sowing chaos" on the folks of Odesa, mentioned that "everybody should see that with out strain on Russia, they don't have any intention of genuinely ending their aggression".

His feedback got here as the newest spherical of US-led diplomatic efforts wrapped up in Miami. The US individually met the Ukrainian and Russian delegations, with the conferences yielding optimistic statements however no clear progress to convey the tip of Moscow's practically four-year warfare on Ukraine any nearer.

US President Donald Trump's particular envoy Steve Witkoff mentioned he and his Ukrainian counterpart Rustem Umerov had labored on "aligning positions" on a 20-point draft peace plan put ahead by Ukraine earlier this month. The plan is an alternative choice to a proposal introduced by the US in November, which was seen as beneficial to Moscow.

Earlier than Russian envoy Kirill Dmitriev even returned to Moscow from Florida, Kremlin international coverage aide Yuri Ushakov advised reporters that the European and Ukrainian adjustments to the peace proposal wouldn't enhance the possibilities of peace being achieved.

On Monday, Russian Deputy Overseas Minister Sergei Ryabkov accused EU international locations of getting a "agency aspiration" to derail potential Russia-US agreements on Ukraine and to "typically forestall Russia-American relations getting more healthy".

He additionally mentioned European international locations have been "possessed by a maniacal" worry of a Russian assault. Russia was prepared to substantiate in a authorized settlement that it had no intention of attacking both the EU or Nato, Ryabkov added, echoing earlier feedback from Putin.

"We have by no means deliberate to [attack Europe], but when they wish to hear it from us, effectively, let's do it, we'll put it in writing," Putin mentioned in November.