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https://www.theguardian.com/world/2023/sep/09/ukraine-russia-war-ports-danube-izmail-reni>
"It had been hundreds of years since the world paid much attention to the
Danube river port of Izmail at the edge of the estuary that now separates
Romania and Ukraine.
The Russian and Ottoman empires traded blows here in the 18th century, and one
epic battle in 1790 – followed by a bloody massacre of civilians – was so
central to Moscow’s concept of its military power that it was glorified in the
country’s first unofficial national anthem.
Then the area slipped back into relative obscurity, traded back and forth
between competing powers, a smuggler’s paradise of sprawling wetlands and
loosely policed borders.
Until Vladimir Putin launched a new imperial war, and tried to close the Black
Sea to Ukrainian shipping. The rusting Soviet-era docks and silted up shipping
channels in Izmail and neighbouring Reni became globally important overnight.
Ukraine produces about 10% of the world’s wheat, feeding hundreds of millions
of people. These Danube ports, in a historic cultural melting pot known as
Bessarabia, are currently the only place its vast harvest can be reliably
loaded on to ships for export.
That has revived the dying local economy, but also, more than 200 years after
the famous siege of Izmail, put it squarely back in the sights of Moscow’s
generals, with both ports being hit repeatedly this summer."
Cheers,
*** Xanni ***
--
mailto:xanni@xanadu.net Andrew Pam
http://xanadu.com.au/ Chief Scientist, Xanadu
https://glasswings.com.au/ Partner, Glass Wings
https://sericyb.com.au/ Manager, Serious Cybernetics
