 "Russian missile strikes target Ukraine’s ports, kill 8 in Odesa amid peace talks")
A Russian missile strike on port infrastructure in Odesa in southern Ukraine killed eight people and wounded 27, Ukraine’s emergency service said Saturday as Moscow intensified strikes across the Black Sea region of Odesa, targeting energy infrastructure and a key transport corridor leading to the Moldovan border.
The discussions are part of the Trump administration’s monthslong push for peace that also included meetings with Ukrainian and European officials in Berlin earlier this week. Ukraine’s chief negotiator said late Friday that his delegation had completed separate meetings in the U.S. with American and European partners.
Meanwhile, European Union leaders agreed on Friday to provide a massive interest-free loan to Ukraine to meet its military and economic needs for the next two years.
The assault is part of what officials describe as a near-constant campaign of drone and missile attacks on an area that hosts ports vital to Ukraine’s foreign trade and fuel imports. This comes at a time when a Kremlin envoy was set to travel to Florida for talks on a US-proposed plan to end the nearly four-year war. The escalation follows Russia’s warning that it could seek to “cut Ukraine off from the sea”.
Russian President Vladimir Putin threatened on Tuesday to sever Ukraine’s access to the sea in response to drone attacks on tankers of Russia’s “shadow fleet” in the Black Sea.
“The most radical solution is to cut Ukraine off from the sea, then piracy will be impossible in principle,” Putin said in televised remarks.
The renewed airstrikes come despite ongoing diplomatic efforts by the United States to push for an end to the conflict. U.S. negotiators were scheduled to hold talks with Russian officials in Florida on Saturday, in the latest attempt to encourage progress towards a negotiated settlement between Moscow and Kyiv.
Saturday’s attack on Pivdennyi port hit reservoirs, Ukrainian Deputy Prime Minister Oleksiy Kuleba said on the Telegram messaging app, a day after a missile strike on the port that killed eight people and injured at least 30.
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View AllOn Thursday and Friday, Russian forces targeted a bridge on the Dniester river estuary near the village of Mayaky, northeast of Pivdennyi, Ukrainian officials said.
The bridge connects parts of the region fragmented by the undulating sea coast and river estuaries, and is the only main route towards Moldova’s border crossings to the west.
”Without significant success on the (battle) front, the enemy is trying to terrorise civilians to create internal destabilisation. These plans are clear, and we are effectively countering them together with the people of Odesa,” deputy presidential administration head Viktor Mykyta said on Telegram.
Russian officials have not commented on the attacks.
Ukrainian authorities temporarily re-routed passengers to other crossings, including by water, into Moldova. Mykyta said Ukraine would create as many alternative crossings as necessary, ”no matter how hard the enemy tries to destroy the connection”.
Last week, one of the war’s biggest Russian air attacks on the strategic Black Sea region damaged energy facilities and prompted a blackout in Odesa, plunging hundreds of thousands of civilians into darkness for days.
Airstrikes on ports damaged three Turkish-flagged vessels in December.
Russian President Vladimir Putin has vowed to cut Ukraine’s access to the Black Sea in retaliation for Kyiv’s maritime drone attacks on Moscow’s sanctions-busting ”shadow-fleet” tankers.
Ukraine says those vessels are used to transport oil, Russia’s main revenue source for funding its almost four-year-old full-scale invasion of its neighbour.
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