Ukraine was pressing ahead with efforts to restart grain exports from Odesa and other Black Sea ports after a missile attack that on Saturday cast doubt over whether Russia would honour a deal aimed at easing global food shortages caused by the war.
DIPLOMACY, ECONOMY
* President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said Russian missile strikes on Odesa were blatant “barbarism” that showed Moscow could not be trusted to implement the deal to unblock grain exports.
* The United Nations, European Community, United States, Britain, Germany and Italy condemned the strikes.
* Turkey’s defence minister said on Saturday that Russian officials had told Ankara, which mediated the grain deal along with the United States, that Moscow had “nothing to do” with the Odesa strikes.
* A senior U.S. Congressional delegation, including Representative Adam Smith, chair of the House Armed Services Committee, met Zelenskiy in Kyiv on Saturday and promised to try to ensure continued support in the war.
* The EU is seeking additional gas supplies from Nigeria as the bloc prepares for potential Russian supply cuts, a European Commission energy official said on Saturday.
FIGHTING
* Ukraine’s defence ministry urged citizens in and around the Russian-occupied southern city of Enerhoder, home to a nuclear power station, to reveal where Moscow’s troops were living and who among the population was collaborating with Russian officials. read more
* Ukrainian forces are gradually moving into the eastern Kherson region, which was taken over by Russia at the start of the war, Zelenskiy said late on Saturday.
* The Russian-installed authority said Ukraine had hit a bridge in the Kherson region with Western-supplied HIMARS rockets but the bridge still worked, Russia’s TASS news agency reported on Saturday.
Reuters could not immediately verify the battlefield reports.
Also Read: Russian missiles strike Ukraine’s port, the key to grain deal: official
* QUOTE
“The Russian missile is Vladimir Putin’s spit in the face of U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres and Turkish President Recep Erdogan, who went to great lengths to reach an agreement and to whom Ukraine is grateful,” said Ukraine’s foreign ministry spokesperson Oleg Nikolenko.
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