Russia Assaults Ukrainian Port Earlier than Key Grain Deal Talks

KYIV, Ukraine (AP) — Two folks have been hospitalized following a 3½-hour Russian drone barrage on a port in Ukraine’s Odesa area on Sunday, officers mentioned.

The assault on the Reni seaport comes a day earlier than Russian President Vladimir Putin is because of meet along with his Turkish counterpart Recep Tayyip Erdogan to debate the resumption of meals shipments from Ukraine beneath a Black Sea grain settlement that Moscow broke off from in July.

Russian forces fired 25 Iranian-made Shahed drones alongside the Danube River within the early hours of Sunday, 22 of which have been shot down by air defenses, the Ukrainian air pressure mentioned on Telegram.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy ’s chief of employees, Andriy Yermak, described the assault as a part of a Russian drive “to impress a meals disaster and starvation on the earth.”

Russia’s Protection Ministry mentioned in an announcement that the assault was geared toward gas storage services used to produce army gear.

Putin and Erdogan’s long-awaited assembly is because of happen in Sochi on Russia’s southwest coast on Monday.

Turkish officers have confirmed that the pair will talk about renewing the Black Sea grain initiative, which the Kremlin pulled out of six weeks in the past.

The deal — brokered by the United Nations and Turkey in July 2022 — had allowed practically 33 million metric tons (36 million tons) of grain and different commodities to go away three Ukrainian ports safely regardless of Russia’s warfare.

Nevertheless, Russia broke away from the settlement after claiming {that a} parallel deal promising to take away obstacles to Russian exports of meals and fertilizer hadn’t been honored.

Moscow complained that restrictions on delivery and insurance coverage hampered its agricultural commerce, though it has shipped document quantities of wheat since final 12 months.

The Sochi summit follows talks between the Russian and Turkish overseas ministers on Thursday, throughout which Russia handed over a listing of actions that the West must take to ensure that Ukraine’s Black Sea exports to renew.

Erdogan has indicated sympathy with Putin’s place. In July, he mentioned Putin had “sure expectations from Western nations” over the Black Sea deal and that it was “essential for these nations to take motion on this regard.”

Elsewhere in Ukraine, two folks have been killed and two others have been wounded throughout Russian shelling Sunday on the village of Vuhledar within the Donetsk space.

Artillery fireplace hit eight settlements throughout the area, Ukraine’s Nationwide Police wrote on Telegram.

Ukrainian prosecutors additionally introduced Sunday that that they had opened a warfare crimes investigation into the demise of a police officer killed by Russian shelling in town of Seredyna-Buda on Saturday afternoon.

Two different law enforcement officials and one civilian have been wounded in the course of the assault, which hit Ukraine’s north-eastern Sumy area.