- Russia confirms Odesa attack, says warship was hit
- Zelenskiy: Attack shows Moscow can’t be trusted with deal
- Zelenskiy adviser: Shipments will suffer if strikes continue
- Moscow and Kyiv had signed a grain export agreement on Friday
- The agreement had sought to avert a major global food crisis
KYIV, July 24 (Reuters) – Ukraine advanced efforts on Sunday to restart grain exports from its Black Sea ports under a deal aimed at easing global food shortages, but warned that the deliveries would suffer if a Russian missile attack on Odesa was a sign of more. to come.
President Volodymyr Zelenskiy denounced Saturday’s attack as “barbarism” that showed Moscow could not be trusted to implement a deal reached just a day earlier with Turkish and United Nations mediation.
The Ukrainian military, quoted by public broadcaster Suspilne, said the Russian missiles did not hit the port’s grain storage area or cause significant damage. Kyiv said preparations to resume grain shipments were underway.
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“We continue technical preparations for the launch of exports of agricultural products from our ports,” Infrastructure Minister Oleksandr Kubrakov said in a Facebook post.
According to the Ukrainian military, two Kalibr missiles fired from Russian warships hit the area of a pumping station in the port and two others were shot down by air defense forces.
Russia said on Sunday that its forces had hit a Ukrainian warship and a weapons depot in Odesa with its high-precision missiles.
The agreement signed by Moscow and Kyiv on Friday was hailed as a diplomatic breakthrough that would help curb rising global food prices by restoring Ukrainian grain shipments to pre-war levels of 5 million tonnes a month. Read more
But Zelenskiy’s economic adviser warned on Sunday that the Odesa strike indicated it may be out of reach.
“Yesterday’s strike indicates that it will definitely not work like that,” Oleh Ustenko told Ukrainian television.
He said Ukraine could export 60 million tonnes of grain over the next nine months, but it would take up to 24 months if operations at its ports were disrupted. Read more
WAR ENTERS SIXTH MONTH
As the war entered its sixth month on Sunday, there were no signs of a lull in the fighting.
The Ukrainian military reported Russian shelling in the north, south and east, again referring to Russian operations that paved the way for an assault on Bakhmut in the eastern Donbas region.
Its air force command said three Russian Kalibr cruise missiles fired from the Black Sea and aimed at the western Khmelnytskiy region were shot down early Sunday.
Although the main theater of combat has been the Donbas, the Ukrainian military said its forces have moved within firing range of Russian targets in the occupied eastern Black Sea region of Kherson, where Kyiv is organizing a counter-offensive.
“Several objects of transport infrastructure in the temporarily occupied territory have been taken under fire control, which significantly limits the maneuverability and logistics of the enemy’s troops,” the southern military command said in a publication on Facebook.
It said it had also destroyed a Russian S-300 anti-aircraft battery in the region. Read more
Reuters could not immediately verify reports from the battlefield.
SAFE STEP
The strikes in Odesa were condemned by the United Nations, the European Union, the United States, Great Britain, Germany and Italy. Read more
Russian news agencies quoted the Russian Defense Ministry as saying that a Ukrainian warship and US-supplied anti-ship missiles were destroyed. Read more
“A docked Ukrainian warship and a warehouse with US-supplied Harpoon anti-ship missiles were destroyed by long-range precision-guided naval missiles in the Odesa seaport on the territory of a ship repair plant,” he said .
On Saturday, Turkey’s defense minister said Russian officials told Ankara that Moscow had “nothing to do” with the strikes.
Friday’s deal is intended to allow safe passage in and out of Ukrainian ports, which have been blockaded by Russia’s Black Sea fleet since Moscow’s February 24 invasion, in what a UN official called a “stop de facto fire” for ships and covered installations.
Ukraine and Russia are the world’s top wheat exporters and the blockade has trapped tens of millions of tonnes of the grain, worsening bottlenecks in the global supply chain.
Along with Western sanctions on Russia, it has fueled food and energy price inflation, pushing some 47 million people into “acute hunger,” according to the World Food Program.
Moscow denies responsibility for the food crisis, blaming sanctions for slowing its food and fertilizer exports and Ukraine for exploiting approaches to its ports.
Ukraine has mined waters near its ports as part of its wartime defenses, but under Friday’s agreement pilots will guide ships through safe channels. Read more
A joint coordination center made up of members of the four parties to the agreement is to monitor ships passing through the Black Sea to Turkey’s Bosphorus strait and on to global markets. All sides agreed on Friday that there would be no attacks.
Putin calls the war a “special military operation” aimed at demilitarizing Ukraine and eliminating dangerous nationalists. Kyiv and the West call this a baseless pretext for an aggressive land grab.
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Reporting by Natalia Zinets and Max Hunder in Kyiv, Tom Balmforth in London and Reuters offices; Written by Simon Cameron-Moore and Tomasz Janowski; Editing by William Mallard, Angus MacSwan and Alexandra Hudson
Our standards: the Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.