Russia assaults a Ukrainian port earlier than key grain deal talks between Putin and Turkey’s president

KYIV, Ukraine — Two folks had been hospitalized following a 3½-hour Russian drone barrage on a port in Ukraine’s Odesa area on Sunday, officers stated.

The assault on the Reni seaport comes a day earlier than Russian President Vladimir Putin is because of meet together with his Turkish counterpart Recep Tayyip Erdogan to debate the resumption of meals shipments from Ukraine below 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 had been shot down by air defenses, the Ukrainian Air Force stated on Telegram.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy’s chief of workers, Andriy Yermak, described the assault as a part of a Russian drive “to provoke a food crisis and hunger in the world.”

Russia’s Defense Ministry stated in an announcement that the assault was geared toward gasoline storage services used to provide army tools.

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 almost 36 million tons of grain and different commodities to depart three Ukrainian ports safely regardless of Russia’s battle.

However, 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 transport and insurance coverage hampered its agricultural commerce, although it has shipped document quantities of wheat since final yr.

The Sochi summit follows talks between the Russian and Turkish international 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 stated Putin had “certain expectations from Western countries” over the Black Sea deal and that it was “crucial for these countries to take action in this regard.”

Elsewhere in Ukraine, two folks had been killed and two others had 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 National Police wrote on Telegram.

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