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Ukraine, Russia sign deal to reopen grain export ports as war rages on


ISTANBUL / KYIV: Russia and Ukraine On Friday signed a landmark agreement to reopen Ukraine’s Black Sea ports for grain exports, stoking hopes that an international food crisis is exacerbated by the invasion of Ukraine. Russia can be appeased.
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The deal was crowned in two months of negotiations due to United Nation and Turkey for what purpose United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres The so-called “package” has both restored Ukraine’s grain exports and helped ease Russian grain and fertilizer shipments despite tough Western sanctions on Moscow.
Mr. Guterres said the agreement opens the way for commercial food exports in significant volumes from three important Ukrainian ports – Odesa, Chernomorsk and Yuzhny, and that the United Nations will establish a coordination center to monitor this. execute the agreement.

“Today, there is a lighthouse on the Black Sea. A beacon of hope…, possibility… and relief in a world that needs it more than ever,” Guterres told the meeting. .
But fighting continues unabated in eastern Ukraine and underscores the deep enmity and mistrust that has led to Europe’s worst conflict since World War Two, representatives of Russia and Ukraine said. refused to sit at the same table at the ceremony, and the two moves’ performances were adjusted so that they were no longer next to each other.
“In the event of provocations, (there will be) an immediate military response” by Ukraine, Kyiv Presidential adviser Mykhailo Podolyak tweeted ahead of the ceremony.
Russia and Ukraine, both among the world’s top food exporters, sent their defense and infrastructure ministers respectively to Istanbul for the signing ceremony, also attended by Guterres and the President of Turkey. Recep Tayyip Erdogan.

The blockade of Ukraine’s ports by Russia’s Black Sea fleet, trapping tens of millions of tons of grain in bunkers and many ships running aground, has exacerbated the bottlenecks of global supply chains and along with Western sanctions, causing hyperinflation in food and energy prices around the world.
Moscow has denied responsibility for the worsening food crisis, instead blaming Western sanctions for slowing its own food and fertilizer exports and Ukraine exploiting methods access their Black Sea ports.
Senior United Nations officials, responding to reporters’ reports on Friday, said the deal is expected to be fully operational in a few weeks.
They said safe passage in and out of ports would be guaranteed in what one official called a “de facto ceasefire” for covered ships and facilities, although the word “ceasefire” did not included in the written agreement.
Although Ukraine has exploited nearby offshore areas as part of a defense against a five-month Russian invasion, Ukrainian pilots will guide ships along safe channels during its territorial sea, they said.

Supervised by the Istanbul-based Joint Coordination Center, the ships will then transit the Black Sea to Turkey’s Bosphorus Strait and out onto the world market, UN officials said.
The agreement will be in effect for 120 days but is renewable and is not expected to be stopped anytime soon.
“The fact that two sides that are at war – and are still very much at war – have been able to negotiate an agreement of this kind… I think that’s unprecedented,” a UN official said.
Another said a separate treaty signed on Friday would make Russia’s food and fertilizer exports smoother and the United Nations welcomed the US and European Union clarified that their sanctions would not apply to such shipments.
To address Russia’s concerns about ships smuggling arms to Ukraine, all returning ships will be inspected by representatives of the parties at a Turkish port and supervised by the JCC.
The overall goal is to help prevent the hunger of tens of millions of people in poorer countries by putting more wheat, sunflower oil, fertilizer and other products on the world market, including for food needs. humanitarian demand, in part at a lower price.
The United States welcomed the agreement and said it was focused on holding Russia accountable for its implementation.
Turkey, a NATO member with good relations with Russia and Ukraine, controls the straits that lead into the Black Sea and acts as a mediator over the grain issue.
President of Ukraine Volodomyr Zelenskiy met senior commanders on Thursday and said Kyiv’s forces, which are increasingly armed with precision, longer-range Western weapons, have strong potential to turn the tide on the battlefield. .
A senior US defense official said the US believes that the Russian military is suffering hundreds of casualties every day, including thousands of officers up to the rank of general, in the course of the war, a defense official said. US senior said on Friday.
The official said Washington also believes Ukraine has destroyed more than 100 “high-value” Russian targets in Ukraine, including command posts, ammunition depots and air defense points.
There have been no major breakthroughs on the front lines since Russian forces captured the last two Ukrainian-held cities in the eastern Luhansk province in late June and early July.
Russian forces now focused on capturing the entire neighboring Donetsk province on behalf of separatists have declared two small breakaway states covering the larger industrialized Donbas region.
In its morning update, the General Staff of Ukraine said that Russian forces supported by heavy artillery continued to try to advance towards the cities of Kramatorsk and Bakhmut and the Vuhlehirska thermal power plant in Donetsk, but failed to achieve success. remarkable progress.
Kyiv hopes that the West’s growing supply of weapons, such as the US High Mobility Artillery Rocket System (HIMARS), will allow them to counterattack and retake eastern territories. and the man is gone.
The Russian Defense Ministry on Friday said its forces destroyed four HIMARS systems between July 5 and 20. Kyiv denies the claims, calling them “fake goods” intended to undermine Western support for Ukraine. Reuters could not verify the assertions.
Russia says it is conducting a “special military operation” aimed at demilitarizing the neighboring country and ridding it of dangerous nationalists.
Kyiv and the West say Russia is waging an anti-imperialist campaign to retake a pro-Western neighbor that broke from Moscow’s rule when the Soviet Union collapsed in 1991.





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