Russia-Ukraine: Putin gives chilling warning to Poland

Russian cruise missiles destroyed farm storage buildings in the Odesa region early Friday, Ukrainian officials said, as Moscow’s forces expanded their targets following three days of bombardment of the southern region’s Black Sea port infrastructure.

Other Russian missiles damaged what officials described only as an “important infrastructure facility” southwest of the port city of Odesa, in what appeared to be part of an ongoing effort to cripple Ukraine’s food exports.

Attacks in recent days have put Odesa in Russia’s crosshairs after Moscow abandoned a wartime deal that allowed Ukraine to send grain through the key Black Sea port.

In the attack on the storage site, two of the low-flying cruise missiles hit initially and started a blaze, and then another struck during firefighting efforts, regional Gov. Oleh Kiper said. The barrage injured two people, damaged equipment and destroyed 100 metric tons of peas and 20 metric tons of barley, Kiper said.

Russia targeted Ukrainian critical grain export infrastructure after vowing to retaliate for an attack that damaged a crucial bridge between Russia and the Moscow-annexed Crimean Peninsula.

Russian deputy foreign minister Sergei Vershinin on Friday accused Ukraine of using a grain export corridor in the Black Sea to launch “terrorist attacks” against Russian interests, including on the Crimean Bridge earlier this week.

Vershinin was speaking at a briefing about Russia’s decision to quit the Black Sea grain deal.

Iran “reserves the right for reciprocal and proportional action” after the European Union imposed new sanctions over Tehran’s support for Russia’s war on Ukraine, its foreign ministry said on Friday.

The ministry again denied Iran was sending drones to Russia for use in its war against Ukraine.

The European Union said on Thursday it would prohibit the export of components used in the construction and production of Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs).

It also listed six Iranian nationals under two already existing sanctions regimes for Iran’s “military support of Russia’s war against Ukraine (drones) and to the Syrian regime (air defense systems)”.

Germany and NATO are prepared to support Poland in defending its eastern flank, German defence minister Boris Pistorius said in Prague on Friday.

“Where the Polish partners need support, they will receive it,” Pistorius said at a press conference with his Czech counterpart in Prague. “They are Nato partners and reliable Nato allies, so we can confidently say that we are prepared.”

The comment comes after Poland’s security committee decided to move military units to the country’s east due to the Wagner Group’s presence in Belarus, according to a report by Poland’s state-run news agency PAP.

Former prime minister Boris Johnson said he was “sad” to see Ukraine’s ambassador to Britain go.

President Volodymyr Zelensky dismissed Vadym Prystaiko on Friday.

A presidential order gave no reason for the dismissal but said Prystaiko had also been removed as Ukraine‘s representative to the International Maritime Organization.

On Twitter, Mr Johnson called him a “great Ukrainian ambassador and friend to this country”.

“I hope he will emerge soon in another incarnation!” Mr Johnson added.

President Vladimir Putin on Friday accused NATO member Poland of having territorial ambitions in the former Soviet Union, and said any aggression against Russia‘s neighbour and close ally Belarus would be considered an attack on Russia.

Moscow would react to any aggression against Belarus, which forms a loose “Union State” with Russia, “with all the means at our disposal”, Putin told a meeting of his Security Council in televised remarks.

Warsaw’s Security Committee decided on Wednesday to move military units to eastern Poland after members of the Russian Wagner mercenary force arrived in Belarus, the state-run news agency PAP quoted its secretary as saying on Friday.

On Wednesday, Wagner chief Yevgeny Prigozhin was shown in a video welcoming his fighters to Belarus, telling them they would take no further part for now in the war in Ukraine but ordering them to gather strength for Africa while they trained the Belarusian army.

Russian investigators have detained prominent Russian nationalist Igor Girkin, his wife said on Friday, a move which suggests authorities may have wearied of his criticism of how Moscow is running its “special military operation” in Ukraine.

Girkin, who is also known as Igor Strelkov, helped Russia annex Crimea in 2014 and then organise pro-Russian militias in eastern Ukraine.

A former Federal Security Service (FSB) officer, he said earlier this year that he was entering politics and has been increasingly critical of President Vladimir Putin and Defence Minister Sergei Shoigu over what he has called the incompetent way Moscow is running what it calls its “special military operation” in Ukraine.

In a message posted on Girkin’s official Telegram account, his wife, Miroslava Reginskaya, said:

“Today, at about 11.30, representatives of the Investigative Committee came to our house. I was not at home. Soon, according to the concierge, they took my husband out by his arms and in an unknown direction.”

She said friends had told her that Girkin had been charged with extremism.

“I do not know anything about my husband’s whereabouts, he has not contacted me,” she said.

There was no immediate comment from the authorities.

President Vladimir Putin on Friday accused Poland of having territorial ambitions in the former Soviet Union, and said any aggression against Russia‘s neighbour and close ally Belarus would be considered aggression against Russia.

Moscow would react to any aggression against Belarus “with all means at our disposal”, Putin told a meeting of his Security Council in televised remarks.

Russia pounded Ukrainian food export facilities for a fourth day in a row on Friday and practised seizing ships in the Black Sea in an escalation of what Western leaders say is an attempt to wriggle out of sanctions by threatening a global food crisis.

The direct attacks on Ukraine‘s grain, a key part of the global food chain, followed a vow by Kyiv to defy Russia‘s naval blockade on its grain export ports following Moscow’s withdrawal this week from a UN-brokered safe sea corridor agreement.

“Unfortunately, the grain terminals of an agricultural enterprise in Odesa region were hit. The enemy destroyed 100 tons of peas and 20 tons of barley,” regional governor Oleh Kiper said on the Telegram messaging app.

Two people had been injured, he said. Photographs released by the emergencies ministry showed a fire burning among crumpled metal buildings that appeared to be storehouses, and a badly damaged fire-fighting vehicle.

The Belarus Red Cross has sparked international outrage after its chief told Belarusian state television that the organization is actively involved in bringing Ukrainian children from Russian-occupied areas to Belarus.

Both Ukraine and the Belarusian opposition have decried the transfer as unlawful deportations, and there have been calls for international war crimes charges for the authoritarian Belarus leader, similar to the charges against Russian President Vladimir Putin.

The actions of the Belarus Red Cross drew stern criticism from the International Federation of Red and Red Crescent Societies.