Status: 07/23/2022 9:40 p.m
The grain agreement is shaking after just one day: “No matter what Russia promises, it will find ways not to implement it,” said Ukrainian President Zelenskyy. He was reacting to the shelling of Odessa, for which Russia does not want to be to blame.
According to the Ukrainian government, Russia has shelled the port of Odessa – one of the ports through which, according to an agreement between the two states, Ukrainian grain is to be exported again. What are the implications for the Grains Agreement? The statements from the Ukrainian government are not very clear.
While Infrastructure Minister Oleksandr Kubrakov announced via Facebook that Ukraine was continuing preparations to resume grain exports from its ports, President Volodymyr Zelenskyy questioned the sense of the grain agreement with Russia.
According to Ukrainian sources, this picture shows firefighters on duty after the Russian shelling in the port of Odessa.
Image: via REUTERS
No official reaction from Russia
The attack proves one thing: “No matter what Russia says or promises, it will find ways not to implement it,” says Zelenskyj in a video distributed on Telegram. Ukraine had interpreted the Russian attack as a breach of the agreement on grain exports concluded only yesterday. In response, the head of the Ukrainian presidential office, Andriy Yermak, called for “effective sanctions against Russia and more weapons for Ukraine”.
According to the agreement brokered by UN Secretary-General António Guterres and Turkey and signed in Istanbul, Ukraine’s Foreign Ministry said it “was less than 24 hours before Russia launched a missile attack on the port of Odessa”. Russian President Vladimir Putin “spit in the face” at Guterres and Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, who were so committed to the agreement.
According to Turkish Defense Minister Hulusi Akar, Russia has said it has nothing to do with the attack and wants to investigate the incident. There was no official Russian reaction until the evening. According to Ukrainian sources, two Russian missiles were intercepted by air defenses during the shelling of Odessa, and two more are said to have hit the port. The port infrastructure was damaged.
conflicting parties as a source
Information on the course of the war, shelling and casualties provided by official bodies of the Russian and Ukrainian conflict parties cannot be directly checked by an independent body in the current situation.
On Friday, Russia had pledged in an agreement that ships for export would be allowed to use a sea corridor and not fired at them. The three ports involved must therefore not be attacked. Among other things, it is about the export of millions of tons of grain. The agreement provides for exports to be monitored by a control center in Istanbul.
The UN and the European Union immediately condemned the shelling. UN Secretary-General Guterres, who attended the signing on Friday, stressed that all parties had made a clear commitment to ensure the safe export of Ukrainian grain. “Full implementation by the Russian Federation, Ukraine and Turkey is imperative,” he said. EU foreign policy chief Josep Borrell wrote on Twitter that the shelling of the port shows “again Russia’s total disregard for international law and obligations.”
Topic overview
war in Ukraine