Russia hits Ukraine's grain for fourth day, practices seizing ships

On Friday, Russia increased its attacks on Ukrainian food export facilities for the fourth day in a row and practised seizing ships in the Black Sea, which Western leaders claim is an effort by Russia to evade sanctions by posing as a worldwide food crisis.

Following Moscow’s this week pullout from a UN-brokered safe sea corridor agreement, Kyiv vowed to defy Russia’s naval embargo on its grain export ports. This led to the direct attacks on Ukraine’s grain, a crucial component of the world food chain.

“Unfortunately, the grain terminals of an agricultural enterprise in Odesa region were hit. The enemy destroyed 100 tons of peas and 20 tons of barley,” regional governor Oleh Kiper said on the Telegram messaging app.

Images from the emergency ministry showed a fire raging amid collapsed metal structures that seemed to be warehouses and a severely damaged fire engine. He claimed two people were hurt, but authorities said seven people were killed in other Ukrainian cities by Russian airstrikes.

Moscow has claimed that the bombings are retaliation for a Ukrainian attack on a bridge to Crimea, the Ukrainian Black Sea peninsula that Moscow seized in 2014.

In what Washington described as a hint that it may target civilian vessels, Russia said that it would consider all ships sailing towards Ukrainian waters to be potentially carrying weapons. In response, Kiev sent out a similar alert on ships en route to Russia.

The Black Sea fleet has practised shooting rockets at “floating targets” and seizing ships, according to a statement from Russia’s military ministry on Friday. The Russian ambassador to the United States denied any attempt to assault ships.

The benchmark Chicago wheat futures prices increased on Friday as traders concerned about supply as a result of the attacks on the grain export infrastructure and the apparent threat to shipping.

Later, the U.N. Security Council was scheduled to discuss the “humanitarian consequences” of Russia’s departure from the safe corridor agreement, which aid organisations contend is essential to preventing starvation in underdeveloped nations.

Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan expressed his optimism that next negotiations with Russian President Vladimir Putin will result in the reinstatement of the deal, which Turkey and the U.N. sponsored.

Erdogan told reporters on a flight home from a trip to the Gulf countries and northern Cyprus that the termination of the agreement might result in an increase in food prices globally, scarcity in some areas, and potentially new waves of migration.

He suggested that the West pay attention to some of Russia’s requests. We are aware that President Putin has expectations of Western nations as well, thus it is imperative that these nations respond in this regard.

Moscow claims that without better terms for its own sales of food and fertiliser, it will not take part in the year-old grain agreement.

Russian food exports are already free from sanctions imposed in response to its invasion of Ukraine, but Western politicians accuse Russia of attempting to relax them. Throughout the crisis, Russian grain has been able to travel freely over the Black Sea to markets, and traders claim that Russia is flooding the market with wheat.

A military reconnaissance drone of unknown origin had crashed earlier this week close to a base in southwest Poland, according to a Polish broadcaster’s report on Friday.

Poland, a member of NATO, has been fortifying its border with Belarus, where the Russian Wagner mercenary army has settled down following a botched uprising last month. According to Germany, the alliance was ready to assist Poland in defending its eastern border.

Belarus has said Wagner fighters are now training its troops near the Polish border. Residents in Poland near the border said on Thursday they could hear shooting and helicopters.

In Russia, investigators detained prominent nationalist Igor Girkin, a former commander of Russia’s proxy forces in Ukraine, who had publicly accused Putin and army chiefs of not prosecuting the war in Ukraine harshly or effectively enough.

“This is a direct outcome of Prigozhin’s mutiny: the army’s command now wields greater political leverage to quash its opponents in the public sphere,” Tatiana Stanovaya, founder of the R.Politik analysis firm, said.

Inside Ukraine, four people were killed in 80 Russian attacks on settlements in the southern Zaporizhzhia region over the past 24 hours, regional governor Yuriy Malashko said.

A married couple in their fifties were killed early on Friday in Russian shelling of the city of Kostiantynivka in the eastern region of Donetsk, the general prosecutor’s office said.

In the northern region of Chernihiv, near the border with Russia, a woman’s body was pulled from the rubble of a cultural building after a missile strike, regional governor Viacheslav Chaus said.

Russia had already used almost 70 missiles and almost 90 Iranian-made drones to attack so far this week, mostly targeting Odesa and other southern regions, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said in his nightly video address.

Many of those strikes are far from the heavy fighting along the front line across southern and eastern Ukraine, which Kyiv is trying to breach to push out occupying Russian forces.

Putin said the West was stoking the “flames of war” by supporting Ukraine, and that Western weapons supplied to Ukraine “burn well” on the battlefield. Ukraine says its counteroffensive is making slow but steady progress.

Russia sent tens of thousands of troops into Ukraine last year and claims to have annexed nearly a fifth of its territory. Moscow says it is responding to threats posed by its neighbour; Kyiv and the West call it an unprovoked war of conquest.

(With agency inputs)