One of Ukraine’s richest men and his wife were killed by Russian missiles that struck southern Ukraine on Sunday.
Oleksiy Vadatursky, founder of agriculture company Nibulon, and his wife Raisa were killed in their home during what the mayor of Mykolaiv described as one of the “most powerful” assaults on the city since Russia’s Feb. 24 invasion. More than 12 missiles rained down on the port city on Sunday during the attack, striking homes and schools and leaving at least three others wounded, according to Mayor Oleksandr Senkevych.
? As a result of a massive shelling of #Mykolaiv on the night of July 31, the Hero of #Ukraine, the owner of the country’s largest grain trading company Nibulon, Aleksey Vadatursky, was killed.
Russian shell hit #Vadatursky’s house. His wife, Raisa Vadaturskaya, also died. pic.twitter.com/caJM15fEYy
— NEXTA (@nexta_tv) July 31, 2022
“Today, one of the most brutal shellings of Mykolaiv and the region over the entire period of the full-scale war took place. Dozens of missiles and rockets … The occupiers hit residential buildings, schools, other social infrastructure, and industrial facilities,” Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said in his nightly address on Sunday.
“The Russian attack took the lives of Oleksiy Vadatursky and his wife Raisa, the founder of one of the largest Ukrainian agricultural companies Nibulon, the hero of Ukraine. My sincere condolences to the relatives and friends of the Vadatursky couple,” Zelensky added.
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Nibulon is headquartered in Mykolaiv, which borders the Russian-occupied region of Kherson that Ukrainian forces have been attempting to reclaim in recent days. Nibulon specializes in the production and export grain products such as wheat, barley, and corn, and the company has its own fleet of ships and shipyard. Vadatursky, 74, was one of Ukraine’s richest men, with an estimated net worth of $430 million, according to Forbes.
In his nightly address, Zelensky credited Vadatursky and Nibulon with fighting to guarantee the world’s food security.
“It is exactly such people, such companies, our Ukrainian south that have guaranteed the world’s food security. It has always been so. And it will be so again. The Russian terrorists should not even hope that they will be able to destroy the social and industrial potential of Ukraine and walk through the ruins,” Zelensky said.
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Two weeks ago, Ukraine and Russia signed separate deals with the United Nations and Turkey to continue grain exports from Black Sea ports to avert a global food crisis.
On Friday, the Ukrainian president traveled to the Odesa region in southern Ukraine to oversee the country’s first grain exports since the start of the war.
