:format(jpeg)/cloudfront-us-east-1.images.arcpublishing.com/tgam/K7RKQLIRZZLYHAKPVUPNBJIKDY.jpg)
A drone is seen in the sky seconds before it attacked buildings in Kyiv, Ukraine, on Oct. 17, 2022. The Russian military has been using the Iranian Shahed exploding drones to strike Ukraine's vital infrastructure for more than a year.Efrem Lukatsky/The Associated Press
Russia launched a combined drone and missile attack on Ukraine early on Sunday, targeting chiefly the southern parts of the Odesa region and hitting an agriculture facility there, Ukraine’s Air Forces said on the Telegram messaging app.
Russia launched six Iranian-made Shahed drones and 10 cruise missiles, with Ukraine’s forces destroying six drones and six missiles before they hit their target, the Air Force said.
The situation in Odesa and its ports has been watched carefully by grain markets, as Kyiv said on Saturday that two cargo vessels arrived there to use a temporary corridor to sail into Black Sea ports and load grain for African and Asian markets.
“Fighter aircraft, anti-aircraft missile units, mobile fire groups and other means of attack were involved in repelling the air attack,” the Air Force said.
Odesa governor Oleh Kiper said on Telegram that a grain silo and agricultural fields were damaged in Berezivskiy district in the eastern part of the region.
“Fortunately, there were no casualties,” Kiper said.
Reuters could not independently verify the report and there was no immediate comment from Russia.
The entire territory of Ukraine was under air raid alerts for several hours.
Ukraine last month announced a “humanitarian corridor” in the Black Sea to release ships trapped in its ports since the start of the war in February 2022 and to circumvent a de facto blockade after Russia abandoned a deal to let Kyiv export grain.