Ukraine repel a Russian drones attack on Odessa and confirm the destruction of 22 drones

The Ukrainian Air Force announced on Sunday that it had destroyed 22 Russian drones in the southern Odessa region.

“The Russian occupiers launched several waves of attacks with Shahid-136/131 unmanned vehicles from the south and southeast,” the Ukrainian Air Force said on Telegram.

The 25 Iranian-made Shahid drones were launched, and the Ukrainian Air Force destroyed 22 of them in cooperation with the air defenses of other components of the Ukrainian Defense Forces.

After the collapse in July of the deal guaranteeing safe passage of grain shipments from the Black Sea, Russia intensified its attacks on Ukraine’s southern regions of Odessa and Mykolaiv, where ports and critical grain-export infrastructure are located.

Last month, the first civilian cargo ship to pass through the Black Sea from Ukraine arrived in Istanbul in defiance of the Russian blockade.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said Saturday that two more ships had crossed from the country’s temporary grain lane in the Black Sea.

The Russian-appointed Crimean Bridge operator said on Telegram that traffic had returned to normal on the main bridge linking Russia and Crimea after a short stop early Sunday.

The local administration didn’t say the reason for the traffic suspension.

The Crimean Bridge has been the target of increasing attacks using drones in the air and sea in the past few months.

Russia annexed Crimea from Ukraine in 2014, a move many Western governments have denounced as illegal.