Ukraine In The Membrane, Con't

Less than 24 hours after a UN-brokered agreement to allow Ukraine to resume shipment of grain to the rest of the world from the port city of Odessa, Russia all but scrapped the deal and blasted the port facilities with missile strikes.

Russian missiles hit the Black Sea port of Odessa on Saturday, Ukrainian officials said a day after Moscow and Kyiv reached a deal to release millions of tons of trapped grain and ease a global food crisis.

The military command in southern Ukraine said two Kalibr cruise missiles hit the infrastructure of the port but not its grain silos in the city of Odessa — one of the country’s largest and most important seaside trading hubs.

Air raid warnings rang at about 11 a.m. local time as the sounds of explosions rocked the city. The military’s southern command reported no casualties. It said air defense systems shot down two other missiles in the attack, which the U.S. ambassador to Ukraine described as “outrageous.”

The strike imperils an agreement that U.N. and Turkish officials, less than 24 hours earlier, had hailed as a breakthrough after months of negotiations. Friday’s deal, brokered by the United Nations and Turkey, would help lift a blockade that has exposed countries around the world to the threat of rising hunger, especially in Africa and the Middle East.

The deal depends in part on Russian promises not to attack Odessa and two other ports involved in the shipments. It included security assurances for both Ukraine and Russia, who agreed not to “undertake any attacks against merchant vessels and other civilian vessels and port facilities” tied to the initiative.

Kyiv accused the Kremlin of jeopardizing the deal, which guarantees the safe passage of merchant ships from the three ports, to restart the flow of grain cut off by a Russian naval blockade.

Ukraine’s ambassador to Turkey said the attack showed the deal with Russia wasn’t “even worth the signed paper,” while a Ukrainian foreign ministry official called it a “spit in the face” of the U.N. chief and Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan.

“It took less than 24 hours for Russia to launch a missile attack on Odessa’s port,” said Oleg Nikolenko, a Ukrainian foreign ministry spokesman.

Anton Gerashchenko, an adviser to Ukraine’s Interior Ministry, shared an image on Telegram that appeared to show smoking rising from the facility. “How will the safety of vessels in the port of Odessa be ensured, if Russia continues shelling?” he wrote.

 

The answer is that safety cannot be assured without risking a major naval confrontation on the Black Sea.  Russia either gets the Ukrainian concessions it wants, or it gets to starve out millions as grain rots in port. Russia cutting off natural gas to Europe is accomplishing much the same. 

 

Moscow isn't holding all the cards, but the hands they have put on the table have won again and again. 

As I've said previously, the current situation in Ukraine is untenable.  Russia's takeover of the Donbas region isn't complete yet, with Ukraine forces mounting counter-offensives thanks to US howitzers and HIMARS rocket artillery systems.

The Biden White House announced another $270 million in security assistance for Ukraine, including four more mobile rocket launchers — a weapon that officials say has caused severe damage to Russian forces.

John Kirby, a National Security Council spokesman, told reporters that the Biden administration will deliver four additional truck-mounted, multiple-rocket launchers — called High Mobility Artillery Rocket Systems, or HIMARS — bringing the number the United States has sent to 16.

Mr. Kirby said the United States would also send Ukraine more HIMARS ammunition, as well as 36,000 rounds of artillery ammunition for howitzers already delivered to Kyiv. Those items will be drawn down from existing Defense Department stocks, Mr. Kirby said.

In addition, Mr. Kirby said, the Defense Department will provide Ukraine with up to 580 Phoenix Ghost tactical drones. Similar to the better-known Switchblade drone, the drones are capable of surveillance but can also be flown into targets and detonated on impact.

Lloyd J. Austin III, the secretary of defense, and the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Gen. Mark A. Milley, previewed the coming HIMARS delivery during remarks to reporters at the Pentagon earlier this week. General Milley said that Ukrainian forces were “effectively employing these HIMARS, with strikes against Russian command and control nodes, their logistical networks, their field artillery near defense sites and many other targets.”

“These strikes are steadily degrading the Russian ability to supply their troops, command and control of their forces, and carry out their illegal war of aggression,” General Milley said.

Mr. Kirby said the new deliveries would bring the Biden administration’s total military assistance to Ukraine to $8.2 billion, and that more aid packages would be announced in the coming weeks. “The president’s been clear that we’re going to continue to support the government of Ukraine and its people for as long as it takes,” Mr. Kirby said.

 

The US is showing how effective its weapons are. But Russia has its own weapons, and as we're seeing this weekend, those weapons are effective too, both tactically and strategically.