File photo of Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy (AP)Russia Ukraine War Live Updates: Ukraine pressed ahead on Sunday with efforts to restart grain exports from Black Sea ports after a missile attack on Odesa raised doubts whether Russia would honour a deal aimed at easing global food shortages caused by the war. President Volodymyr Zelenskiy denounced Saturday’s strikes as “barbarism” that showed Moscow could not be trusted to implement a deal struck just one day earlier with Turkish and United Nations mediation.
Less than 24 hours after Russia signed a deal to unblock grain exports from Black Sea ports, explosions rocked port city of Odesa on Saturday, the Ukrainian military said. “The enemy attacked the Odesa sea trade port with Kalibr cruise missiles,” Ukraine’s Operational Command South wrote on the Telegram messaging app. Two missiles hit infrastructure at the port, while another two were shot down by air defense forces, it said.
Meanwhile, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said there could be no ceasefire unless lost territory was retaken. He said this after hailing the grain export agreement that Russia and Ukraine had signed on Friday. In other news, the Health Ministry said in Lok Sabha that there are no provisions in the law to accommodate Ukraine-returned medical students for practical training. “Therefore, no permission has been given by the NMC to transfer or accommodate any foreign medical students in any Indian medical institute or university,” union minister of state for health and family welfare Dr Bharti Pravin Pawar said.
Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, right, and UN Secretary General, Antonio Guterres, sit as two representatives of Ukraine and Russia delegations check hands during a signing ceremony at Dolmabahce Palace in Istanbul, Turkey, July 22, 2022. (AP)
Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov was in Cairo for talks Sunday with Egyptian officials as his country seeks to break diplomatic isolation and sanctions by the West over its invasion of Ukraine.Lavrov landed in Cairo late Saturday, the first leg of his Africa trip that will also include stops in Ethiopia, Uganda and the Democratic Republic of Congo, according to Russia’s state-run RT television network.
The Russian chief diplomat met Sunday morning with President Abdel Fattah el-Sissi in a Cairo presidential palace, the Egyptian leader's office said. Lavrov then held talks with Egyptian Foreign Minister Sameh Shukry.Lavrov was scheduled to meet later Sunday with the Arab League Secretary General Ahmed Aboul Gheit.
Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said on Sunday that Russian forces had hit a Ukrainian military boat in the port of Odesa in Ukraine with high-precision missiles.
"Kalibr missiles destroyed Odesa port's military infrastructure, sending a Ukrainian military boat to the Kiev regime's favourite address in a precision strike," Zakharova posted in Telegram.
Zakharova's comment came after Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky accused Russia of striking Odesa port a day after grain deal was struck with the United Nations, Turkey, and Ukraine. (Reuters)
After Russian missiles hit Odesa on Saturday, Ukraine Foreign Ministry spokesman Oleg Nikolenko said that Russian President Vladimir Putin has "spit in the face of" UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres and Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, who made enormous efforts to reach the agreement.
Russian missiles hit infrastructure in Odesa in southern Ukraine on Saturday, the Ukrainian military said, dealing a blow to a deal signed on Friday to unblock grain exports from Black Sea ports. "The enemy attacked the Odesa sea trade port with Kalibr cruise missiles," Ukraine's Operational Command South wrote on the Telegram messaging app. Two missiles hit infrastructure at the port, while another two were shot down by air defence forces, it said.
Russia is also a major exporter of grains and fertilizer, and the agreement should make it easier to sell those goods on the world market. The Kremlin has repeatedly claimed that its stocks cannot be exported because of sanctions imposed by the United States and the European Union.
The measures do not in fact affect those goods, but private shipping companies, insurers, banks and other businesses have been reluctant to help Russia export grains and fertilizers, fearing that they might run afoul of sanctions or that doing business with Russia might harm their reputations.
Offering reassurance, the EU on Thursday issued a legal clarification to its sanctions saying that various banks and other companies involved in the grain trade were not in fact banned.
The United Nations said that, armed with similar assurances by the United States, it held talks with the private sector, and that trade from Russia — especially the Russian port of Novorossiysk — should pick up pace.
No. Global hunger is a constant problem caused by poor distribution of food and price manipulation, hitting some parts of the world year after year. It is often compounded by conflict and has also been affected by climate change. The war in Ukraine, which produces a large share of the world’s wheat, added an enormous burden on grain distribution networks, driving up prices and fanning hunger.
Officials say the agreement has the potential to increase the flow of wheat to Somalia within weeks, averting a full-blown famine, and should lead to a gradual decline in global grain prices. But considering the agreement’s fragility, grain markets are unlikely to return to normal immediately.
➡️Why was Ukrainian grain stuck inside the country?
After Russia invaded Ukraine on Feb. 24, it deployed warships along Ukraine’s Black Sea coast. Ukraine mined those waters to deter a Russian naval attack. That meant that the ports used to export Ukrainian grain were blocked for commercial shipping. Russia also pilfered grain stocks, mined grain fields so that they couldn’t be harvested and destroyed grain storage facilities.
➡️How will the operation work?
Ukrainian captains will steer vessels packed with grain out of the ports of Odesa, Yuzhne and Chornomorsk. A joint command center with officials from Ukraine, Russia, Turkey and the United Nations will be set up immediately in Istanbul to monitor every movement of the flotillas.
➡️What are the risks?
No broad cease-fire has been negotiated, so the ships will be traveling through a war zone. Attacks near the ships or at the ports they use could unravel the agreement. Another risk would be a breach of trust or disagreement between inspectors and joint command officials.
More from World
Russia's armed forces are torturing prisoners of war and civilians in southern Ukraine, Human Rights Watch (HRW) alleged Saturday.
The rights group said it carried out interviews with dozens of people in the occupied regions of Kherson and Zaporizhzhia, revealing 42 cases where Russian forces had either made civilians disappear or otherwise arbitrarily detained them.
Some had not had any contact with the outside world and many had been tortured. HRW also documented the torture of three members of Ukraine's Territorial Defense Forces who were POWs. Two of them died. (DW)
Three people were killed as 13 Russian missiles hit a military airfield and railway infrastructure in Ukraine's central Kirovohrad region on Saturday, the local governor said.
Speaking on television, Governor Andriy Raikovych said two security guards at an electricity substation had been killed. He also said that one Ukrainian soldier had been killed and nine more wounded.
Raikovych said the strikes had disrupted the electricity grid and that one district of the regional capital Kropyvnytskyi had been left without power as a result. (Reuters)
➡️ Ukraine has around $10 billion worth of grain available for sale in the wake of the deal signed with Russia to unblock supplies, and will also have a chance to sell the current harvest, Zelenskyy said.
➡️ A number of insurance underwriters are interested in providing cover for grain shipments from Ukraine after the agreement to reopen Black Sea ports although details need to be worked out, a senior London marine insurance market official said.
➡️ Russia's state-owned Rosneft and Gazprom will be able to ship oil to third countries under an adjustment of EU sanctions aimed at limiting the risks to global energy security.
➡️ Credit rating firms Fitch and Scope downgraded Ukraine to a notch above default after Kyiv requested a debt-payment freeze, while adviser JPMorgan said it cannot rule out Ukraine needing more debt relief. (Reuters)
Thirteen Russian missiles hit a military airfield and railway infrastructure in Ukraine's central Kirohovrad region on Saturday, killing and wounding a number of people, the local governor said.
Governor Andriy Raikovych wrote on Telegram that rescue teams were working at the impact sites, and that one small district of the regional capital, Kropyvnytskyi, had been left without electricity by the strikes. (Reuters)
Heavy fighting has been taking place in the last 48 hours as Ukrainian forces continued their offensive against Russia in Kherson province, west of the Dnipro River, British military intelligence said on Saturday.
Russian forces are using artillery fire along the Ingulets River, a tributary of the Dnipro, the UK's Ministry of Defence said. "Supply lines of the Russian forces west of the river are increasingly at risk," the ministry said in an intelligence update.
It added that additional Ukrainian strikes have caused further damage to the key Antonivsky Bridge, though Russia has conducted temporary repairs. (Reuters)
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said there could be no ceasefire unless lost territory was retaken.
"Freezing the conflict with the Russian Federation means a pause that gives the Russian Federation a break for rest," Zelenskyy told the Wall Street Journal. "Society believes that all the territories must be liberated first, and then we can negotiate about what to do and how we could live in the centuries ahead." (Reuters)
In late June, Ukraine announced it had destroyed a Russian military base in Izyum, in the eastern Donbas region, killing at least 40 soldiers. Another strike that night reportedly killed a commander of Russia's elite VDV paratrooper regiment.
They were the first Russian victims of HIMARS (the M142 High Mobility Artillery Rocket System), a mid to long-range missile system that has allowed Ukraine to strike deep beyond the front lines for the first time since Russia invaded in February.
The US began to send HIMARS to Ukraine in June, as Russia continued to advance through Donbas and Luhansk in an artillery-heavy offensive. Since then, HIMARS have become a valuable tool for Ukraine's military, which says it has conducted dozens of strikes on Russian targets, including air defense systems and ammunition stores. (DW)
➡️ Washington is exploring whether it can send US-made fighter jets to Ukraine, although this would not be done immediately, a White House spokesman said.
➡️ Zelenskyy told the Wall Street Journal a ceasefire with Russia without reclaiming lost territory would only prolong the war.
➡️ Russia's defence ministry said its forces had destroyed four US-supplied high mobility artillery rocket systems (HIMARS) between July 5 and Wednesday. (Reuters)
The United States is exploring whether it can send US-made fighter jets to Ukraine, a White House spokesman told reporters, as the conflict with Russia is about to enter its sixth month and fighting rages in eastern Ukraine.
While the Biden administration was making preliminary explorations into the feasibility of potentially providing the jets to Ukraine, the move is not something that would be done immediately, White House spokesman John Kirby told reporters in a briefing.
"It's not something that would be executed in the near-term," Kirby said. (Reuters)
The Baltic state of Lithuania has lifted a ban on the rail transport of sanctioned goods into and out of the Russian territory of Kaliningrad, Russia's RIA news agency said on Friday.
The European Union last week said the transit ban only affected road, not rail, transit, and Lithuania should therefore allow Russia to ship concrete, wood and alcohol across EU territory to the exclave
Lithuania had stopped Russia from sending sanctioned goods via rail to Kaliningrad in June, triggering an outcry from Moscow and a promise of swift retaliation. (Reuters)
Ukraine has around $10 billion worth of grain available for sale in the wake of a deal signed with Russia to unblock supplies and will also have a chance to sell the current harvest, President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said.
"This is another demonstration that Ukraine can withstand the war," he said in a late-night address. "Approximately 20 million tons of last year's grain harvest will be exported. There will also be a chance to sell this year's harvest ... at the moment we have about $10 billion worth of grains available," said Zelenskyy. (Reuters)
As diplomatic efforts to de-escalate the crisis in Ukraine continue, the time has come for Delhi to devote greater attention to Central Europe, which is at the heart of the contestation between Russia and the West. Delhi can’t forever view this critical region through the prism of Russia’s conflict with the West. It must come to terms with its growing strategic significance, writes C. Raja Mohan.