Image: Reuters Berita 24 English - Despite warnings that supplies would suffer if a Russian missile assault on Odesa was a portent of more t...
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| Image: Reuters |
Berita 24 English - Despite warnings that supplies would suffer if a Russian missile assault on Odesa was a portent of more to come, Ukraine pressed forward on Sunday with efforts to resume grain exports from its Black Sea ports as part of a pact aimed at easing global food shortages.
The attack on Saturday was condemned by President Volodymyr Zelenskiy as "barbarism," demonstrating that Moscow could not be trusted to carry out the agreement reached just one day earlier with Turkish and UN intervention.
According to the Ukrainian military, which was cited by state radio Suspilne, neither the Russian missiles nor the grain storage area at the port were struck or seriously damaged. Kyiv stated that steps were being taken to resume grain supplies.
Infrastructure Minister Oleksandr Kubrakov wrote on Facebook, "We continue technical preparations for the start of exports of agricultural products from our ports."
The location of a pumping station at the port was struck by two Kalibr missiles fired from Russian warships, according to the Ukrainian military, and two more were shot down by air defence troops.
On Sunday, Russia claimed that its forces had used high-precision missiles to strike an Odessa weapons warehouse and a Ukrainian warship.
The agreement reached by Moscow and Kyiv on Friday was hailed as a diplomatic victory that would help bring back Ukrainian grain supplies to pre-war levels of 5 million tonnes per month, which would help lower the skyrocketing world food costs.
However, Zelenskiy's economic advisor cautioned on Sunday that the strike in Odesa may have indicated that wasn't in the cards.
Oleh Ustenko said on Ukrainian television that the strike the day before "indicates that it will definitely not work like that."
According to him, Ukraine could export 60 million tonnes of grain over the following nine months, but if its ports' operations were disrupted, it might take up to 24 months.
WAR STARTS ITS SIXTH MONTH
On Sunday, as the war entered its sixth month, there was no indication of a ceasefire as Russia announced intentions to look into alleged war crimes by Ukrainian soldiers.
The Ukrainian military mentioned Russian activities opening the way for an assault on Bakhmut in the eastern Donbas region, as well as Russian shelling in the north, south, and east.
The Russians are still making attempts to impose authority over the region near the Vuhlehirsk power plant, which is located 50 kilometres (31 miles) northeast of Donetsk, according to the military's Sunday evening briefing note. The memo also identified a number of settlements along the entire front line that it said had recently received shelling from Russia.
On Sunday, the Ukrainian air command announced that four Russian Kalibr cruise missiles fired from the Black Sea and aimed for the western Khmelnytskiy region had been destroyed.
While the Donbas has been the primary battleground, the Ukrainian military claimed its soldiers had moved inside shooting range of Russian targets in the seized Kherson region of the eastern Black Sea, where Kyiv is waging a counteroffensive.
The combat reports could not immediately be confirmed by Reuters.
According to remarks made by Alexander Bastrykin, the director of Russia's investigative committee, and published overnight, Moscow has accused 92 members of the Ukrainian armed forces of crimes against humanity and proposed a new international tribunal to conduct the inquiry.
The statement follows a July 14 agreement between the United States and more than 40 other nations to coordinate investigations into alleged war crimes in Ukraine, the majority of which are said to have been committed by Russian forces and their proxies.
PASSAGE SAFE
The United Nations, the European Union, the United States, Britain, Germany, and Italy all condemned the attacks on Odesa.
An Ukrainian warship and anti-ship missiles provided by the United States were destroyed, according to the Russian defence ministry, as reported by Russian news outlets.
The agreement reached on Friday intends to end the Russian Black Sea fleet's blockade of Ukrainian ports since Moscow's incursion on February 24. One U.N. official described the agreement as a "de facto ceasefire" for the ships and infrastructure it covers.
Tens of millions of tonnes of grain have been caught by the blockade, aggravating bottlenecks in the global supply system. Ukraine and Russia are two of the world's largest exporters of wheat.
It has fueled food and energy price inflation, which, along with Western sanctions against Russia, has put about 47 million people at risk of "acute famine."
Moscow disputes that it is to blame for the food crisis, accusing Ukraine for mining the entrances to its ports and the sanctions for slowing down its exports of food and fertiliser.
As part of its wartime defences, Ukraine mined the waters near its ports, but under the agreement reached on Friday, pilots will direct ships along safe lanes.
Ships travelling from the Black Sea through Turkey's Bosporus Strait and then onto global markets will be watched by a Joint Coordination Center manned by representatives of the four parties to the agreement. On Friday, it was agreed by both sides that no attacks would be made.
Putin refers to the conflict as a "special military operation" that aims to rid Ukraine of dangerous nationalists and demilitarise the country. This is referred to as a flimsy pretext for an aggressive territorial grab by Kiev and the West.
