The Ukrainian military accused Russia on Wednesday of hitting a civilian ship entering a port in southern Odesa region, killing the captain and injuring four others, AFP reports.

A Russian missile “launched from an aircraft” “hit the structure of a civilian ship flying the Libertarian flag,” the Southern Command of the Armed Forces of Ukraine reported in Telegram.

“Three crew members, citizens of the Philippines, were injured; one of them was hospitalized. The pilot died, another port employee was injured,” he added.

The Ukrainian military condemned Moscow’s policy of “terrorizing civilian shipping” in the Black Sea.

The first such incident so close to Ukraine’s coast illustrates rising tensions in the Black Sea between Ukraine and Russia, which have escalated since July and the end of a grain deal that allowed Ukrainian grain to be exported despite a 2022 summer war.

Since August, Ukraine has created its own maritime corridor, despite Moscow’s threats to attack all ships heading to or from Ukrainian ports.

At the end of October, Kyiv announced that it had exported 1.3 million tons of agricultural products in less than three months.

At the same time, in August and September, the Russian military carried out a long campaign of strikes against Ukraine’s grain and port infrastructure, which Kyiv says is a means of blocking all exports.

Moscow, for its part, has repeatedly stated that it strikes only against military targets.

Despite its numerical dominance on paper, Russia’s control over the Black Sea has been weakened in recent months by spectacular Ukrainian attacks, including explosive maritime drones targeting Russian ships.

In September, Ukraine launched a missile attack on the headquarters of the Russian Black Sea Fleet in the Crimean port of Sevastopol.