Russia bombards Ukraine ports

Russia struck residential buildings on Thursday in a third straight night of bombardments of Ukrainian ports and issued a new threat against Ukraine-bound vessels that the United States said meant Moscow might attack ships on the high seas. Days after Russia abandoned a U.N.-brokered deal to let Ukraine export grain, new signals that Moscow was willing to use force to reimpose its blockade of one of the world’s biggest food exporters set global prices soaring. Moscow says it will not participate in the year-old grain deal without better terms for its own food and fertiliser sales. The United Nations says Russia’s decision threatens the food security of the world’s poorest people. Kyiv is hoping to resume exports without Russia’s participation, and said on Wednesday it was setting up an alternative route via the waters of its NATO-member neighbour Romania. But no ships have sailed from Ukrainian ports since Moscow pulled out of the deal on Monday, and insurers have had doubts about whether they will be able to underwrite policies for trade in a war zone. Since quitting the deal, Moscow has rained missiles down nightly on Ukraine’s two biggest port cities, Odesa and Mykolaiv. Thursday’s strikes appeared to be the worst yet, with local authorities in Mykolaiv reporting at least 19 people wounded. Firefighters were battling a huge blaze at a pink stucco residential building in Mykolaiv, blasted into a ruin. Several other residential buildings there were also damaged. Officials also said at least two people were injured in attacks in Odesa, where buildings were on fire. In its most explicit threat yet, Russia’s military announced it would deem all ships heading for Ukrainian waters from Thursday morning to be potentially carrying weapons, and their flag countries as parties to the war on the Ukrainian side. It said it was declaring parts of the Black Sea to be unsafe.