Ukraine's August grain exports via Danube at 820,000 metric tons so far

KYIV, Aug 17 (Reuters) - Ukraine in the first half of August exported 820,000 metric tons of grain via its ports on the Danube River, which is currently its main export route, the APK-Inform consultancy said late on Wednesday.

APK-Inform gave no comparative figures.

Ukraine traditionally exports most of its grain using its deep-water Black Sea ports of Odesa and Mykolaiv, but it was forced to switch to the Danube after Russia pulled out of a UN-brokered Black Sea grain deal in mid-July.

Denys Marchuk, deputy head of the Ukrainian Agrarian Council, the country's largest agribusiness organization, told national television than Ukrainian Danube ports could export around 2.5 million tons of grain per month.

However, exports via the Danube could be affected by the recent Russian attacks on port infrastructure.

"The most important challenge is of course the strikes on port infrastructure," Marchuk said.

"Because of the strikes, exports have slowed down. We realize that freight prices have gone up... some of shipowners are refusing to go due to the dangerous situation," he added.

Kyiv said on Wednesday that Russian drone strikes damaged grain silos and warehouses at the river port of Reni on the Danube. Earlier this month, Russia attacked the Danube port of Izmail.

Ukraine's First Deputy Farm Minister Taras Vysotskiy told the national television broadcaster that up to 5,000 tons of grain was destroyed in the attack on Reni.

The agriculture ministry said this week that Ukraine's grain exports had totaled 3.3 million metric tons in the 2023/24 July-June season as of Aug. 16.

(Reporting by Pavel Polityuk; editing by Jason Neely)