Ukraine strives to resume grain exports, Russian artillery targets in the east According to Reuters

By Pavel Polityuk and Max Hunder

KYIV (Reuters) -Ukraine moved forward on Monday with an effort to restart grain exports from Black Sea ports under a deal to ease global food shortages but said an attack Weekend rockets by Russian forces into Odesa highlighted the risks to deliveries.

As the fighting entered its sixth month, the Ukrainian military said Russia had launched extensive shelling in eastern Ukraine overnight and said Moscow continued to prepare for an attack on Bakhmut in the Donbas industrial area, where which Moscow aims to capture on behalf of the separatists.

President Volodymyr Zelenskiy’s office said that near Kharkiv, Ukraine’s second largest city located in the northeastern part of the country, three people were trapped under the ruins of a cultural center in the town of Chuhuyiv, and the third was trapped under the ruins of a cultural center in the town of Chuhuyiv. 4 injured.

Zelenskiy denounced Saturday’s attack on the port of Odesa as “barbaric”, showing that Moscow could not be trusted to implement the agreement reached a day earlier with mediation by Turkey and the United Nations.

That agreement is intended to allow safe entry and exit to Ukrainian ports, which have been blockaded by Russia’s Black Sea fleet since Moscow’s February 24 invasion. A United Nations official called the agreement a “de facto ceasefire” for covered ships and facilities.

Public broadcaster Suspilne quoted the Ukrainian military as saying that 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.

Infrastructure Minister Oleksandr Kubrakov said in a Facebook post (NASDAQ:) “We continue to make technical preparations for the start of the export of agricultural products from our ports.”

Ukraine’s military said two Kalibr missiles launched from a Russian warship hit the area of ​​a pumping station in the port and two other missiles were shot down by air defenses.

Russia said its forces hit a Ukrainian warship and an arsenal in Odesa with precision missiles.

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Global wheat prices rose on Monday on uncertainty over the cereal deal. Prices fell sharply on Friday as traders predicted supply shortages would ease, threatening to push millions into starvation.

The deal was hailed as a diplomatic breakthrough that helped rein in soaring global food prices by restoring Ukraine’s grain shipments to pre-war levels of 5 million tonnes/month within weeks.

Zelenskiy’s economic adviser, Oleh Ustenko, told Ukrainian television that the strike “indicates that it is definitely not going to work like that”.

He said Ukraine could export 60 million tons of grain in the next nine months, but it will take up to 24 months if port operations are disrupted.

As with the eastern Donbas region, Russia has its eye on large swaths of southern Ukraine, where it occupied two areas north of the Crimean peninsula on the Black Sea that it annexed from Ukraine in 2014.

Russia’s RIA news agency reported that Kherson and Zaporizhia regions could hold a referendum in early September on joining Russia, citing Vladimir Rogov, a member of the Russian-appointed Zaporizhia provincial government.

However, the Ukrainian military reported progress in the counter-offensive in Kherson, saying their forces had moved within range of Russian targets. Kyiv said they are slowly returning to the region.

Britain said Russian commanders continue to face a dilemma – whether to strengthen defenses around Kherson and surrounding areas or strengthen their offensive in the east.

Reuters could not immediately verify the battlefield reports.

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Alexander Bastrykin, head of Russia’s investigative commission, said Moscow had charged 92 members of Ukraine’s armed forces with crimes against humanity and proposed a new international court handle the investigation. .

This announcement comes after the United States and more than 40 other countries agreed on July 14 to coordinate the investigation of suspected war criminals in Ukraine, primarily related to the defendant’s actions. forced by Russian forces and their proxies.

Under the grain deal, a Joint Coordination Center staffed by officials from Ukraine, Russia, the United Nations and Turkey will monitor ships passing through the Black Sea to Turkey’s Bosporus Strait and to other ports. world market. All parties agreed on Friday there would be no attacks against them.

Ukraine and Russia are major global wheat exporters and the blockade has trapped tens of millions of tons of grain, exacerbating bottlenecks in the global supply chain.

According to the World Food Program, along with Western sanctions against Russia, it has caused food and energy price inflation, leaving some 47 million people “acute hunger”. under the World Food Program.

Moscow denies responsibility for the food crisis, blaming sanctions for slowing its food and fertilizer exports and Ukraine exploiting its port access methods.

Ukraine has been exploiting the waters near its ports as part of its defense campaign but under Friday’s agreement, pilots will guide ships along safe channels.

Putin called the war a “special military operation” aimed at demilitarizing Ukraine and destroying dangerous nationalists. Kyiv and the West call this a baseless pretext for an aggressive land grab.