Russia targets sunflower oil storage facilities in Odessa region

Russia, which is targeting Ukraine's Black Sea region of Odessa, has struck sunflower oil storage facilities, Kyiv and an oil trader said on Saturday.

A series of intense Russian strikes in recent weeks have wreaked havoc in the coastal region, with Moscow's forces targeting bridges and ports and cutting off electricity and heat supplies to thousands of people.

„Russia is once again trying to restrict Ukraine's access to the sea and blockade our coastal regions“, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said.

He added that he had ordered the swift implementation of „temporary infrastructure solutions so that people have all the necessary resources“.

Moscow has previously said it would expand strikes on Ukrainian ports in retaliation for attacks on its oil tankers in violation of international sanctions.

„„Allseeds Black Sea“, Ukraine's largest vegetable oil terminal“ in the port of Pivdene, was bombed in the early hours of Saturday morning, „Allseeds“'s commercial director and co-founder Cornelis Vrins told AFP news agency, adding that one worker was killed and two injured.

Thousands of tonnes of sunflower oil were lost in the attack, which was the worst damage to the company since the start of the war, said a spokesman for one of the biggest seed oil traders in Ukraine.

Ukraine, with its large agricultural sector, is the world's leading producer of sunflower oil, analysts estimate, and attacks on export infrastructure could disrupt markets and reduce state revenues.

Ukraine said on Friday it had struck another sanctions-violating tanker from Moscow's „shadow fleet“ in the neutral waters of the Mediterranean. It was the first strike in that sea in nearly four years of war.

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Earlier this month, Kiev also struck similar vessels in the Black Sea.

Russian President Vladimir Putin said in early December that Russia would expand its strikes on Ukrainian ports and threatened to block the country's access to the sea completely if it continued to attack tankers.