KYIV, Jan 7 (Reuters) – Russia attacked two seaports in Ukraine’s Odesa region on Wednesday, killing one person and injuring eight others, Ukrainian officials said.
Russia has repeatedly attacked Ukraine’s ports and foreign-flagged vessels sailing from them in recent weeks, after President Vladimir Putin vowed to cut Ukraine off from the sea in retaliation for Kyiv’s strikes on unregulated oil tankers sailing to Russia.
Ukraine’s seaport administration said the attacked ports were Chornomorsk and Pivdennyi, both key export arteries for Ukraine’s commodity-heavy economy.
“This is yet another attack by a terrorist country on port infrastructure that is involved in ensuring global food security,” deputy prime minister Oleksiy Kuleba said.
Moscow attacked the Odesa region seaports 96 times in 2025, Ukraine’s seaports authority told Reuters on Wednesday, nearly triple the number of attacks in 2024.
Port facilities, administrative buildings and tanks containing vegetable oil were damaged in Wednesday’s attacks, Kuleba said, adding that the ports were continuing to operate even as the damage was being cleared.
Russia escalated strikes on Ukrainian ports in December after Ukraine conducted strikes on empty “shadow fleet” tankers, which Moscow uses to ship its oil to buyers despite Western sanctions. Kyiv has long sought to curtail this revenue stream, which it says is funding Russia’s war in Ukraine.
(Reporting by Yuliia Dysa. Writing by Max Hunder. Editing by Hugh Lawson and Mark Potter)
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