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Novorossiysk hit
Ukraine launched a major drone and missile attack on Russia’s Black Sea port city of Novorossiysk, hitting warships at a naval base and forcing two major grain terminals to halt operations on Wednesday, according to Russian and Ukrainian officials and grain industry sources.
“forced two major grain terminals to halt operations on Wednesday”
Regional Governor Veniamin Kondratyev said the attack killed at least two people, including an 8-year-old child, and the Ukrainian SBU described the strike as having "strategic significance".
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said two frigates, a large landing ship, a corvette and other vessels were hit, while the Reuters report said the grain-terminal strikes raised fears of a disruption to global supplies.
The Russian agriculture ministry said it was working to redirect export flows to alternative routes, and Novorossiysk Mayor Andrei Kravchenko said the port suspended its water supply and declared an emergency after the strikes.
Chicago wheat futures rose around 3% on Wednesday after the attack, as Reuters reported that Russia is the world’s largest wheat exporter and most exports are shipped via its Black Sea ports.
Food-market dispute
Russia warned that the Novorossiysk strikes would disrupt global food supplies, with Foreign Ministry spokesperson Maria Zakharova accusing Ukraine of seeking to "provoke chaos" on the global food market.
Zakharova said the campaign "exacerbates shortages of grain and fertilizers, drives up global food prices" and increases costs for countries in the Global South and East, according to TASS news agency as cited by CNBC.
Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelenskiy described the operation against Novorossiysk as a success, saying Kyiv launched a unique mix of long-range drones and weapons to target Russian fleet vessels in the bay area of the city.
The BBC reported that Zelenskiy wrote on social media that "The occupying fleet and all the infrastructure that supports it will not be safe as long as Russian aggression continues," while also noting that Russia had not commented on the issue.
The BBC also said the Russian agriculture ministry announced it was working to redirect cargo flows to ports in the Baltic and Caspian Seas as well as land routes, while taking into account "current logistical constraints".
CPC and next moves
The Novorossiysk attack unfolded alongside a separate U.S.-linked shift in Ukraine’s targeting of oil tankers, after the Financial Times reported that Ukraine paused drone strikes on oil tankers using Russia’s Black Sea port of Novorossiysk at the request of U.S. Vice President JD Vance.
“Ukraine has paused drone strikes on oil tankers using Russia's Black Sea port of Novorossiysk”
The FT reported that Vance asked Zelenskyy to halt the attacks during a call on July 31, and a U.S. official told the FT that Washington views the Caspian Pipeline Consortium (CPC) as an alternative to Russian energy supplies.
Reuters said the CPC hosts oil export infrastructure and is owned partly by U.S. oil majors Chevron and Exxon Mobil, and the FT reported that Ukraine agreed not to target CPC infrastructure and non-Russian vessels as long as they were not under Ukrainian sanctions and were not carrying Russian oil or other Russian cargo.
Reuters also reported that Russia’s strikes on Ukraine’s logistics and warehouse facilities have intensified in response to Kyiv’s attacks on Russian energy, port and logistic hubs, while Zelenskiy said on Tuesday that Kyiv had handed proposals to U.S. negotiators for a plan to end the conflict.
In the same reporting cycle, Reuters said shipments tumbled 76% in the first two weeks of August from a year earlier, and it noted that Ukraine and Moldova agreed on a plan for routing Ukrainian grain shipments through Moldova by rail.
