Ukraine has lost about a third of its capacity to export grain via its vital Black Sea ports due to intensifying Russian missile and drone attacks, according to the country's main farmers' union.
More than four years into its war with Russia, agricultural exports like grains and vegetable oils remain Ukraine's biggest source of foreign currency earnings, with more than 90% shipped through three ports in the southern Odesa region.
Under a deal meant to allow both countries to ship grain through the Black Sea, the Odesa ports had been handling about 6 million metric tons of cargo a month.
Both Moscow and Kyiv are now stepping up attacks on key revenue sources, with Ukrainian forces hitting Russian energy infrastructure, including oil tankers, and Russia intensifying its attacks on the Black Sea ports in recent weeks.
"Russia has begun systematically striking port infrastructure, terminals and the entire transport logistics chain, using ballistic missiles again and again," the trading department of Ukrainian farmers' union UAC said in a weekly report released late on Tuesday.
