Russian missiles landed on Saturday the port of Odessawhere Ukrainian grain is processed for export, Ukrainian Air Force spokesman Yuri Ignat told AFP.
• Also read: Ukraine: Two Americans killed in Donbass
• Also read: War in Ukraine: Death in battle “as a hero”
European Union diplomatic chief Josep Borrell condemned this “reprehensible” attack on the port of Odessa on Saturday.
By launching those missiles at Odessa, the Russian President “spit in the face of UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres and Turkish President Recep (Tayyip) Erdogan, who have made tremendous efforts to reach this deal,” the Ukrainian Foreign Ministry spokesman responded. Oleg Nikolenko.
The agreement is expected to allow the export of 20-25 million tons of grain blocked in Ukraine.
Russia’s invasion of Ukraine – two countries that primarily supply 30% of world wheat exports – has pushed up grain and oil prices and hit hard the African continent, which depends heavily on these countries for its supplies.
Here is an update on the situation in Ukraine on the 150th day of the war, based on information from AFP journalists on the ground, official Ukrainian and Russian statements, Western sources, analysts and international organizations.
center
Three people were killed in Russian attacks in central Ukraine on Saturday.
Thirteen Russian cruise missiles launched from the sea fell near the town of Kropyvnytskyi in the Kirovograd region (centre), its governor Andriy Raikovych announced and specified that railway infrastructure and a military airfield were attacked.
Northeast
Pro-Russian separatists from the self-proclaimed “Donetsk People’s Republic” (DNR) in eastern Ukraine have signed a cooperation agreement with occupation authorities in the northeastern Kharkiv region, testifying to the “Kremlin’s desire to integrate Kharkiv Oblast into the Russian Federation,” writes the American Institute for the Study of War (ISW).
east
Russian forces are continuing their relentless bombardment in the Donetsk region (east), which has been at the heart of their military offensive in recent months.
The Ukrainian Presidency recorded “five people killed and ten injured in the last 24 hours” there on Friday.
Two Americans died in Donbass, the Foreign Ministry told AFP news agency on Saturday, without specifying whether they were combatants.
Since the Russian invasion began on February 24, many foreign volunteers, mostly Europeans, have traveled to this country to help the Kiev Armed Forces. Their exact number is difficult to estimate.
Russia, which regularly denounces the presence of these fighters on Ukrainian soil, said in mid-June it had killed nearly 2,000 “foreign mercenaries” since the conflict began.
south
According to the British Ministry of Defense, Ukrainian forces are continuing their offensive against the Russians in the Kherson region west of the Dnieper.
“Russian supply chains west of the Dnieper are increasingly at risk” as renewed Ukrainian bombardment damaged a key bridge for Russian logistics in the region, the ministry said.
New US aid for Kyiv
The United States on Friday night announced a new round of $270 million in military aid to Ukraine, notably including four new Himars precision artillery systems.
Washington will have equipped Kyiv with a total of 20 units of these multiple rocket launchers mounted on light armor after this new shipment, said John Kirby, White House strategic affairs spokesman.
The highly mobile Himars fire GPS-guided missiles at a range of 80 kilometers, allowing Ukraine to hit previously out-of-range Russian targets.
tens of thousands dead
There is no overall assessment of the civilian casualties of the conflict. The UN has counted nearly 5,000 confirmed deaths, including more than 300 children, but the true number is likely much higher. In the city of Mariupol (south-east) alone, the Ukrainian authorities said around 20,000 people had died.
At the military level, the British Armed Forces Chief of Staff, Admiral Tony Radakin, last Sunday estimated the number of Russian soldiers killed or wounded at 50,000. Kyiv reported 10,000 dead in its troops.
No independent statistics are available.
Displaced or refugee Ukrainians
According to the International Organization for Migration (IOM) and the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), more than six million Ukrainians are internally displaced.
They join the approximately 5.5 million Ukrainians who have been registered as refugees in other European countries since the start of the invasion.