On October 9, Russia struck the port infrastructure in the Odesa region with ballistic missiles, damaging a civilian container ship, Shui Spirit, sailing under the Panamanian flag. This is the third foreign ship attacked by Russian forces in Ukrainian ports in the last four days. As a result of the attack, eight people died and the number of wounded has reached 11 people.
It will be recalled that on October 7, Russia attacked the civil vessel Optima under the flag of Palau, killing one person and injuring five more foreign crew members. On October 6, Russian troops also attacked Odesa with ballistic missiles, damaging the civilian cargo ship Paresa under the flag of St. Kitts and Nevis.
Despite these attacks, Ukraine increased its grain exports by 58.2%, to 11.4 million tons, in the new marketing year. Ukraine have exported 6.62 million tons of wheat, 1.44 million tons of barley, 7,500 tons of rye, and 3.07 million tons of corn.
The EU has condemned Russian attacks on civilian ships transporting Ukrainian grain and called for pressure on the aggressor state to stop these attacks.