Putin launches ‘hellish’ attack on Odesa port after pulling out of grain deal – live

Russia launched a massive air attack on the Ukranian port of Odesa for a second night in row, which one Ukrainian official described as “hellish”.

The Ukrainian authorities maintained they have not been intimidated and will continue to work to export grains.

The attack was “very powerful, truly massive,” Serhiy Bratchuk, spokesperson for the Odesa military administration, said in a voice message on Telegram.

“It was a hellish night,” he said, adding that details on damage and casualties will come later.

There are a “number of ideas being floated” to help get Ukrainian and Russian grain and fertilizer to global markets after Moscow quit a deal allowing the safe Black Sea export of Ukraine grain, the United Nations said yesterday.

The Black Sea deal was brokered by the UN and Turkey in July last year to combat a global food crisis worsened by Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. Ukraine and Russia are among the world’s top grain exporters.

Russia’s withdrawal on Monday, which included revoking its guarantees for safe navigation, also ended a pact between the United Nations and Moscow in which UN officials agreed to help Russian food and fertilizer exports reach world markets.

However, UN secretary-general Antonio Guterres “will continue to explore all possible avenues to ensure that Ukrainian grain, Russian grain, Russian fertilizer are out on the global market,” UN spokesperson Stephane Dujarric said.

“There are a number of ideas being floated,” he told reporters, without giving details.

Ukraine’s foreign minister Dmytro Kuleba said an alternative to the Black Sea grain deal had to be found and “there are very active discussions now.”

A fire broke out at the military training grounds in the Kirovske district on the Crimean peninsula, the Moscow-backed governor of Crimea said today.

The fire forced the closure of the nearby Tavrida Highway, Russian-installed governor Sergei Aksyonov of Crimea said on Telegram.

Earlier, the RBC-Ukraine news agency reported that there were explosions on the military training grounds.

Ukrainian air defence systems were engaged in repelling a Russian air attack on the southern port of Odesa for a second consecutive night, the region’s governor said today.

Russia struck Ukrainian ports last night, a day after pulling out of a UN-backed deal for safe Black Sea grain exports, a decision that raised concern primarily in Africa and Asia of rising food prices and hunger.

“Do not approach the windows, do not shoot or show the work of air defence forces,” Odesa governor Oleh Kiper said on Telegram

All of the eastern part of Ukraine was under air raid alerts, starting soon after midnight.

The top US general has warned that while Ukraine’s slow-moving counteroffensive against Russian invasion is far from failure, the war ahead will be long and bloody.

“I think there’s a lot of fighting left to go and I’ll stay with what we said before: This is going to be long. It’s going be hard. It’s going to be bloody,” General Mark Milley, chair of the Joint Chiefs of Staff told reporters.

Asked whether the counter-offensive was a failure, at least so far, he said: “It is far from a failure. I think that it’s way too early to make that kind of call.”

He confirmed that the counteroffensive will be slow, and was asked about another round of talks on arms for Ukraine.

In a delayed counteroffensive that began only a few weeks back, casualties on both sides mount and the frontlines have moved only incrementally.

The United States and other allies have spent months building Ukraine a “mountain of steel” of weaponry and training Ukrainian forces in combined arms techniques to help Kyiv pierce formidable Russian defences during its counteroffensive.

Kyiv has recaptured some villages in the south and territory around the ruined city of Bakhmut in the east, but has yet to attempt a major breakthrough across heavily defended Russian lines.

Kyiv says it is deliberately advancing slowly to avoid high casualties on fortified defensive lines strewn with landmines, and is focused for now on degrading Russia’s logistics and command. Moscow says the Ukrainian counteroffensive has failed.

Ukrainian Deputy Defence Minister Hanna Maliar said the initiative in the area had switched to Ukrainian forces in northeastern Ukraine.

It came after Moscow reported advances by its troops.

Ms Mailiar said Ukrainian forces were “making slow but sure progress” in the south as they try to approach occupied ports on the Sea of Azov to sever a land bridge Russian forces have set up between the east and the Crimean peninsula, annexed in 2014.

“The enemy’s key task is to stop us here. They are doing this with all their might,” she told national television. “Our forces must first overcome these obstacles and prepare the ground so we can advance more effectively.”

Russia is continuing its spate of overnight attacks on Ukraine as the sounds of blasts have been heard near Kyiv.

The Ukrainian air defence systems were engaged in repelling the attacks on Kyiv, the capital’s military administration said on the Telegram channel.

Witnesses have reported hearing blasts and smoke rising near Kyiv.

In June, sources told Reuters that European diplomats had informed Iran they planned to retain EU ballistic missile sanctions set to expire in October under the nuclear deal.

It is a step they said could provoke Iranian retaliation.

The sources cited three reasons for keeping the sanctions: Russia’s use of Iranian drones against Ukraine; the possibility Iran might transfer ballistic missiles to Russia; and depriving Iran of the nuclear deal’s benefits given Tehran has violated the accord, albeit only after the United States did so first.

Keeping the EU sanctions would reflect Western efforts to prevent Iran from developing nuclear weapons and the means to deliver them despite the collapse of the 2015 deal, which then-US President Donald Trump abandoned in 2018.

Ukrainian police have released bodycam video said to show the aftermath of a Russian missile attack on Odesa.

The attack on Odesa, one of Ukraine’s main ports for exporting grain, followed a pledge of retaliation by Moscow after a blast on a bridge linking Russia to the Crimean Peninsula on Monday 17 July.

Ukraine’s air force said all six Kalibr missiles that were fired overnight, and 31 out of 36 drones, were shot down. The missiles and most of the drones were downed over Odesa and Mykolaiv regions in the south.

Falling debris and blast waves damaged several homes and unspecified port infrastructure in Odesa.

There was no word of any deaths, but an elderly man was wounded, Ukraine’s southern military command said.

The key factor in weighing the IOC’s ultimate decision on letting Russians participate at the 2024 Paris Games is how well athletes behave in international competitions, the Olympic body’s president Thomas Bach said Tuesday.

“It’s too soon to draw final conclusions,” Bach said, adding “we have the responsibility not to punish athletes for the acts of their government.”

The International Olympic Committee has pushed sports governing bodies this year to approve some athletes from Russia and its military ally Belarus competing as neutrals for international competitions including Paris qualifying events.

Bach has previously said the IOC can take its own final decision “at the appropriate time, at its full discretion” which could include barring Russians and Belarusians as their countries’ war on Ukraine continues.