Ukrainian forces have successfully neutralised a total of 17 unmanned aerial drones of Russian origin in the southern Odesa region.
It was reported on Monday that these actions resulted in the infliction of damage within a district situated along the Danube river, which shares a border with Romania, a member state of the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation.
“Seventeen drones were shot down by our air defense forces,” regional governor Oleg Kiper wrote on Telegram, adding there were no civilian casualties.
“But, unfortunately, there are also hits,” he said. “In several settlements of Izmail district, warehouses and production buildings, agricultural machinery and equipment of industrial enterprises were damaged.”
Russia’s withdrawal from a UN-brokered Black Sea grain accord in July, which had sought to assure safe grain shipments from Ukraine, has led to the Danube river port of Izmail becoming a primary export route for Ukrainian products via Romania.
The Ukrainian military said that Russia launched a “massive” attack overnight that “was directed at the civil infrastructure of the area of the Danube” using Iranian-made Shahed attack drones.
The attacks occur just one day after Ukrainian forces in the Odesa area successfully repelled an onslaught of Russian drones.
On Sunday, the Russian military announced that it had attacked petroleum storage facilities in the Ukrainian city of Reni, located on the Danube between Ukraine and Romania.
The incident on Monday came just hours before Russian President Vladimir Putin and Turkish Leader Recep Tayyip Erdogan meet in Moscow to discuss reviving the grain agreement.
