Moscow: Strike in Odessa was considered US weapons
Created: 07/24/2022, 12:50 p.m
View of grain silos in the port of Odessa in November 2016. © Jussi Nukari/Lehtikuva/dpa
Russia has admitted the attack on the port of Odessa for the first time, citing US weapons allegedly stored there as the reason
Moscow - One day after the Russian rocket attacks in the port of the Ukrainian Black Sea metropolis Odessa, Moscow justified the internationally criticized attack with the destruction of US weapons.
The missiles were fired at a ship repair plant, the Defense Ministry said in Moscow on Sunday.
A Ukrainian warship and a warehouse with US-supplied Harpoon missiles were destroyed in the dock, sources said.
Ukraine has repeatedly inflicted heavy blows on the Russian Navy with such missiles.
In addition, as a result of the attacks, facilities for repairing and modernizing the ship inventory of the Ukrainian naval forces were shut down, the Russian Defense Ministry said in a statement.
The Russian Foreign Ministry had previously admitted the attacks on Odessa.
The attack on Saturday morning had caused international outrage because Russia had just signed an agreement in Istanbul on the previous day to also export Ukrainian grain from this port in Odessa.
The agreement is still valid.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy called the rocket attacks on the port of Odessa an act of "blatant Russian barbarism".
"If anyone in the world said earlier that it is necessary to enter into dialogue with Russia, to reach agreements on a ceasefire without liberating our territory from the occupiers, today's missiles have destroyed the possibility of such statements," said Zelenskyy.
On Friday, Russia pledged in the agreement that ships for export would be allowed to use a sea corridor and not fired at them.
The three ports involved must therefore not be attacked.
Among other things, it is about the export of millions of tons of grain.
The agreement, signed through the mediation of the United Nations and Turkey, provides for exports to be monitored from a control center in Istanbul.
dpa
