Russia attacks Ukrainian port on Danube, Zelenskiy urges US to send Patriots

(Reuters)་་

Aug 13 – Russia struck Ukraine’s largest Danube grain shipment port overnight, causing damage and setting off a fire, authorities ​said on Thursday, after President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said Ukraine needed more U.S. air ‌defence missiles to get through winter.

The port of Izmail, near the Romanian border in the southern region of Odesa, handles exports of Ukrainian grain and other commodities. The Izmail regional state administration said on Telegram the ​strikes caused damage to port infrastructure and took out power in the southeast of ​the city.

The attack comes a day after Ukraine hit Novorossiysk, a major grain ⁠shipment hub in Russia’s part of the Black Sea.

Romania, a member of NATO and the ​European Union, scrambled two fighter jets, its defence ministry said on X, adding that an aerial ​target spent about 10 minutes in national airspace before leaving for Ukraine.

Also in the Odesa region, a Russian drone hit a passenger train, killing the driver and his assistant, Oleksandr Pertsovskyi, CEO of the Ukrainian Railways, ​said in a post on Facebook.

Late on Wednesday, Zelenskiy told CNN that Ukraine needs at ​least 5% of the current U.S. stockpile of Patriot interceptor missiles to ward off surging Russian ballistic missile ‌attacks.