Latest developments:
- Russia says a Ukrainian attack Monday on a bridge linking Russia’s Krasnodar region to the Crimean Peninsula, a major military supply route, killed a civilian couple and injured their child, while damaging the bridge’s road decking and halting traffic.
- U.N. secretary-general criticizes Russian decision to end its participation in a nearly year-old agreement that allowed Ukraine safe passage to export its grains from three Ukrainian ports past Russian warships on the Black Sea.
- Russia has a "sufficient stockpile" of cluster bombs and the right to use them if cluster munitions are used against its forces in Ukraine, Russian President Vladimir Putin told Russian TV on Sunday.
Russia said Monday it is ending its participation in a nearly year-old agreement that allowed Ukraine safe passage to export its grains from three Ukrainian ports past Russian warships on the Black Sea.
The United Nations and Turkey brokered the Black Sea Grain Initiative amid a global food crisis, seeking to facilitate the exports that otherwise were blocked in Russia’s 17-month war against Ukraine. Much of the exported grain was shipped to impoverished countries in Africa, the Middle East and Asia.
U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres protested the Russian action, saying the Black Sea exports “have been a lifeline for global food security and a beacon of hope in a troubled world.”
“At a time when the production and availability of food is being disrupted by conflict, climate change, energy prices and more, these agreements have helped to reduce food prices by over 23% since March last year,” Guterres said. “Today’s decision by the Russian Federation will strike a blow to people in need everywhere.”
Linda Thomas-Greenfield, U.S. ambassador to the U.N., assailed Moscow for the cutoff in grain shipments, calling it “another act of cruelty” on Russia’s part.
“While Russia plays political games,” she said, “real people will suffer: the child in the Horn of Africa who is severely malnourished, the mother who will stop producing breast milk for her baby because she doesn’t have enough to eat herself. These are the consequences of Russia’s actions.”
In Washington, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken told reporters that Russia should not have stopped the Ukrainian grain shipments and that they “should be restored as quickly as possible.”
Ahead of the deal’s expiration on Monday, Russia had said it was not benefiting enough under the initiative. Ukraine and Russia are both major global suppliers of wheat, barley, sunflower oil and other affordable food products.
Ukraine’s agrarian policy minister, Mykola Solsky, told VOA that “Ukrainian exports will be badly affected because shipping grain by sea is the most efficient way to ship grain from Ukraine. Globally, this decision will have an impact in such a way that the poorest people in the world will be put on the brink of starvation by Russia because they will be forced to pay more for food and buy less of it.”
He said that Ukraine “will fight for this grain corridor, and we will use all other methods of export.”
Aside from the Ukrainian grain exports, a parallel memorandum of understanding between Moscow and the United Nations has sought to remove obstacles to the export of Russian grain and fertilizer. While food and fertilizer exports are not prohibited by the West, efforts have been made to ease concerns of anxious banks, insurers, shippers and other private sector actors wary about doing business with Russia.
One of Russia’s main demands has been for its agriculture bank to be reinstated in the SWIFT system of financial transactions.
"Unfortunately, the part of these Black Sea agreements concerning Russia has not been implemented so far, so its effect is terminated,” Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters. “As soon as the Russian part of the agreements is fulfilled, the Russian side will return to the implementation of this deal, immediately.”
The U.N. said that since the exports began in August 2022, 32.9 metric tons of food commodities have been exported to 45 countries. Experts said not renewing the deal would cause food prices to spike.
The last ship to depart Ukraine under the deal left a Ukrainian port on Sunday.
Crimea bridge
Russia said a Ukrainian attack Monday on a bridge linking Russia’s Krasnodar region to the Crimean Peninsula, a major military supply route, killed a civilian couple and injured their child, while damaging the bridge’s road decking and halting traffic.
Russia's Anti-Terrorism Committee attributed the attack to two Ukrainian sea drones.
Natalia Humeniuk, a spokeswoman for Ukraine's southern military command, said, “Destruction of the enemy's logistical routes is destroying his potential, making it impossible to supply resources to counter. Therefore, any logistical artery along which the enemy pulls up its forces is a legitimate target, and destruction of it naturally or unnaturally is work for the counteroffensive to advance."
The bridge serves as a key link to supply Russian forces in their invasion of Ukraine.
Russian authorities said the attack damaged a section of the bridge closer to Crimea, the region Russia annexed in 2014 in a move not recognized by the international community. There was no damage to the bridge’s piers, Russia said.
The bridge was previously damaged in an October explosion that Russia also blamed on Ukraine.
Ukrainian Security Service spokesman Artem Degtyarenko said in a statement that details of the incident would be revealed after Ukraine wins the war.
“In the meantime, we are watching with interest how one of the symbols of the Putin regime once again failed to withstand the military load,” Degtyarenko said, referring to Russian President Vladimir Putin.
Ukrainian presidential adviser Mykhailo Podolyak also alluded to the attack in a tweet Monday, saying, “Any illegal structures used to deliver Russian instruments of mass murder are necessarily short-lived... regardless of the reasons for the destruction.”
Ukrainian gains
A Ukrainian defense official said Monday the country’s military had retaken 18 square kilometers of territory during the past week, and 210 square kilometers from Russian forces since launching a counteroffensive last month.
The gains included seven square kilometers in the Bakhmut area, in eastern Ukraine. Russian forces have occupied the city since May.
In southern Ukraine, Deputy Defense Minister Hanna Maliar said Ukrainian fighters had retaken 11 square kilometers as they advance on the cities of Berdyansk and Melitopol.
Maliar also said Russian forces have advanced on Kupiansk in the Kharkiv region in eastern Ukraine.
VOA’s Myroslava Gongadze and Margaret Besheer contributed to this report. Some information came from The Associated Press, Agence France-Presse and Reuters.
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