‘The war had come to us too’: how Ukraine’s Danube ports became vital hubs – and targets

With Odesa out of action, Izmail and Reni are now the only places grain can reliably be exported

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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.