Russian officials have said that Ukraine launched missile attacks on three gas platforms in the Black Sea, south of Odessa, in an apparent escalation of Kyiv’s attempts to weaken Russia’s maritime dominance.
Seven people were missing and three were injured after the attacks, according to the head of occupied Crimea, Sergey Ationov, who said a “rescue operation was being carried out with the participation of patrol boats and aircraft.”
The three coastal platforms, the Boyko Towers, had previously been confiscated by Moscow in Ukraine in 2014. Kyiv believes they are used for military reconnaissance and to help assert control of a larger part of the Black Sea.
There was no immediate official confirmation from Ukraine about the attack, although a Ukrainian MP from the Odessa region, Oleksiy Goncharenko, said in the early hours of the morning that missiles had been fired at the platforms.
An attack on the platforms would represent a new attempt by Ukraine to reach the Black Sea, three days after it said it had destroyed a Russian tugboat near Snake Island with Western Harpoon missiles.
Last month it emerged that Denmark would supply a Harpoon coastal defense system to Ukraine, with rockets spanning 124 km (77 miles). It operates alongside Neptune’s Ukrainian missiles, which sank the Russian warship Moskva in April.
Elsewhere, Hanna Malyar, Ukraine’s deputy defense minister, said Russia was gathering forces to launch a final assault on the city of Sievierodonetsk and neighboring Lysychansk in Donbas over the weekend.
Malyar told Ukrainian television that “decisive battles were taking place in the Sievierodonetsk region” and that the Russians were hoping to “reach the borders of the Luhansk region around June 26,” which means the capture of Ukraine. ‘both cities.
Fighting has been going on in Sievierodonetsk for weeks as Russia tries to make way for control of the city by heavy artillery bombardment, while Ukraine has engaged in a desperate defense that is likely to have cost hundreds of people. lives.
Serhiy Haidai, the governor of the Luhansk region, said Ukrainian forces were still pending. “They control the main part of the city, but not the whole city,” he said, adding that the clashes made evacuations of the city impossible.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy predicted that Russia would intensify its attacks this week, and warned European partners that they too should be prepared for increased hostilities while Kyiv awaits a decision on its candidacy. to join the EU.
“A historic week begins,” he said in a video address overnight as EU leaders questioned whether to follow a European Commission recommendation to grant Kyiv candidate status to join the economic bloc.
Zelenskiy said: “Obviously, we should expect more hostile activity from Russia. Intentionally – demonstratively. This week exactly. And not only against Ukraine, but also against other European countries. We are preparing. We are ready. We warn the partners”.
Ukrainian artillery and missile attacks also continued against Donetsk. The largest Russian-controlled Donbas city has faced some of the most intense bombing since the start of the conflict in eastern Ukraine in 2014.
Images posted on local social media also appeared to show damaged infrastructure in the city. Russia-appointed Donetsk Mayor Aleksey Kulemzin urged local residents not to leave their homes and seek refuge on Monday. “Donetsk is being bombed again,” he said.
Igor Girkin, a former FSB officer who led a separatist militia in the Donetsk area of eastern Ukraine in 2014, wrote on his Telegram page that the bombing also damaged the 1st Corps headquarters. of the Army, the military force of the pro-Russian people of Donetsk. Republic.
Ukrainian attacks over the weekend affected military weapons facilities, according to video footage of flaming depots posted online by Russian state media. “It looks like Ukraine is hitting the ammunition targets and logistics facilities of the Donbas to degrade Russia’s ability to fight in the east,” said Rob Lee, a military analyst.
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Haidai said wheat farmers in the nearby Russian-occupied territories were earning less than half of what they received before the war and in Russian rubles. Russian employment authorities were offering farmers 8,000 rubles (118 pounds) per tonne of grain for the upcoming planting season, he said.
“In fact, producers will be paid only 30% of the cost of grain. Specialists understand that it is impossible to carry out a planting campaign for the 2023 harvest with these funds “, added Haidai.
Before the war, Ukraine was the world’s fifth largest exporter of wheat, but the Russian blockade of the Black Sea since the beginning of the invasion has prevented the country from exporting much of its grain, which has pushed up world prices.
EU foreign policy chief Josep Borrell called Russia’s blockade of Ukraine’s grain shipments “a real war crime,” adding: “It’s inconceivable. You can’t imagine millions of tons of wheat remains stuck in Ukraine while the rest of the world is starving. “