25 July,2022 10:11 AM IST | Kyiv | Agencies
Firefighters extinguish a fire in a local market damaged following shelling in the town of Bakhmut, eastern Ukraine on Thursday. Pic/AFP
Ukraine pressed ahead on Sunday with efforts to restart grain exports from Black Sea ports after a missile attack on Odesa raised doubts whether Russia would honour a deal aimed at easing global food shortages caused by the war.
President Volodymyr Zelensky denounced Saturday's strikes as "barbarism" that showed Moscow could not be trusted to implement a deal struck just one day earlier with Turkish and United Nations mediation. The United Nations, European Community, United States, Britain, Germany and Italy condemned the strikes.
Public broadcaster Suspilne quoted the Ukrainian military as saying after the strike that the missiles did not hit the port's grain storage area or cause significant damage and Kyiv said preparations to resume grain shipments were ongoing. "We continue technical preparations for the launch of exports of agricultural products from our ports," Infrastructure Minister Oleksandr Kubrakov said in a Facebook post. Russia said on Sunday its forces had hit a Ukrainian warship and a weapons store in Odesa with missiles.
The deal signed by Moscow and Kyiv was hailed as a diplomatic breakthrough that would help curb soaring global food prices by restoring grain shipments from Ukrainian ports to pre-war levels of 5 million tonnes a month. But Zelensky's economic advisor said on Sunday the strike on Odesa showed deliveries could still get seriously disrupted. "Yesterday's strike indicates that it will definitely not work like that," Oleh Ustenko told Ukranian television.
As the war entered its sixth month on Sunday there was no sign of a let-up in the fighting. The Ukrainian military reported Russian shelling in the north, south and east, and again referred to Russian operations paving way for an assault on Bakhmut in Donbas region in the east. The air force command said its forces shot down early on Sunday three Russian Kalibr cruise missiles fired from the Black Sea and aimed at western Khmelnytskiy region.
Two U.S. citizens recently died in the Donbas region of eastern Ukraine, a U.S. State Department spokesperson said on Saturday, without disclosing further details. The U.S. administration was in touch with the families of the deceased the State Department spokesperson said.
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