Three new grain-laden merchant ships left Ukraine’s Black Sea ports this weekend, beginning a series of regular rotations to supply agricultural markets. This wheat taking off closes a lukewarm week on the frontlines of diplomacy and the field on a whiff of hope.
While Presidents Vladimir Putin and Emmanuel Macron have not spoken on the phone for two months because France is an “unfriendly” country, Turkish President Erdogan was in Sochi this Friday to discuss war and peace with the Kremlin’s number one . A peace that doesn’t seem ready to be announced as Russian forces this week continued their attacks on southern and eastern Ukraine and are attempting to use missile troops to thwart the Kiev offensive…
Here is one point in four infographics on this new week of war in Ukraine, ending this Friday, the 163rd day of the conflict.
“In Pisky, Avdiivka and elsewhere. there is hell out there”
Map of the situation in Ukraine on August 5 at 9 am. – SIMON MALFATTO, SOPHIE RAMIS, KENAN AGEARD
To the south, in the Kherson region, the first major city to fall on March 3, the Russian army is trying to stem a slow counteroffensive by Ukraine, which announced on Tuesday it had captured 53 locations there. “Russian forces launched two attacks in the northern Kherson region and continue to move troops south,” it said the American Institute for the Study of War (ISW). For free… for now.
While every enemy gnaws at the ground in the south, rockets and other precision artillery continue to wreak havoc elsewhere in Ukraine. “Russian high-precision missiles” used it to destroy a “depot of foreign weapons and ammunition” near Radekhiv in the Lviv region, the Russian army said without further information. The day before, the Ukrainian Air Force had reported eight Russian cruise missiles fired from the Caspian Sea.
Arms shipments continue to allow Kyiv to offset Russia’s numerical superiority. In his daily speech on Tuesday evening, the Ukrainian President thanked his American counterpart Joe Biden for providing highly mobile Himars systems that fire GPS-guided missiles with a range of 80 kilometers. “For our country, the word ‘Himars’ has become almost synonymous with the word ‘justice’,” said Volodymyr Zelenskyy. However, Russian artillery and manpower supremacy remains evident, particularly in the fighting raging to the east in Donetsk, one of the two regions of the Donbass Basin, Zelensky conceded: “In Pisky, Avdiivka and elsewhere. It’s hell out there.”
Ukraine (finally) exports its released wheat
Chart showing amount of wheat exported by country in 2020 in million tons according to FAO data. -PAZ PIZARRO, SYLVIE HUSSON
Five days after the freighter Razoni left Ukraine’s port of Odessa, carrying the first shipment of grain since the Russian invasion began, three new shipments of grain left Ukraine in a convoy on Friday. The Panamanian-flagged Navistar left Odessa for Ireland with 33,000 tons of corn; The Maltese-flagged Rojen sails from Chernomorsk to England with 13,000 tons and the Turkish freighter Polarnet, waiting at the quay in Chernomorsk, with 12,000 tons of corn to Karasu, a Turkish port on the Black Sea.
These ships, loaded with this corn critical to global food security, are sailing ahead under the watchful eye of the Joint Coordination Center (JCC), set up in Istanbul under the terms of the international agreement signed in Istanbul on July 22. This agreement, endorsed by Turkey and the United Nations, should make it possible to alleviate the world food crisis that has pushed up prices. Note that global food prices fell sharply in July, driven down by grain and vegetable oil prices, the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) said on Friday. For example, the FAO grain index fell by 11.5%, “the biggest drop was the world price of wheat, which fell as much as 14.5% in response to the agreement concluded between Ukraine and the Russian Federation on the release of the main black ports lost sea”.
According to Kyiv, 16 more boats loaded with grain are waiting to leave Odessa.
Zelensky against amnesty
Map of Ukraine showing the fighting that has claimed casualties since the conflict began on February 24, 2022. – Paz PIZARRO, Jean-Michel CORNU, Sophie STUBER
Progress on grain exports was partially overshadowed by a reportAmnesty International Kyiv is accused of endangering the lives of civilians.
In the document, released Thursday after a four-month investigation, Amnesty International accused Ukraine’s military of setting up military bases in schools and hospitals and launching attacks from populated areas, a tactic it says goes against international humanity. Volodymyr Zelenskyy reacted violently in his daily video statement on Thursday evening, accusing the NGO of “trying to amnesty the terrorist state Russia” and “transferring responsibility from the attacker to the victim”.
However, Amnesty International’s report insists that the Ukrainian tactics “in no way justify the indiscriminate Russian attacks” that have hit civilians. Eight people were killed and four wounded in a Russian attack on a bus stop in Toretsk, eastern Ukraine, on Thursday. However, after 163 days of war, there is still no overall balance of civilian casualties in the conflict. At the military level, around 15,000 Russian soldiers lost their lives, according to US and British intelligence, while Kyiv reports 10,000 dead among its troops. No independent statistics are available.
Finland and Sweden, a little closer to NATO
Map of NATO member countries and candidates for membership of the organization, including Finland and Sweden, whose membership ratification process officially began on July 5. – SIMON MALFATTO, SOPHIE RAMIS, KENAN AUGEARD
Sweden and Finland, which had previously refrained from joining NATO to avoid the wrath of neighboring Russia, presented their candidatures after Moscow invaded Ukraine on February 24. These were adopted at a NATO summit in Madrid at the end of June.
And this Wednesday, the United States ratified the accession protocols. The US Senate approved this resolution in a vote by a very large majority (95 votes in favour, 1 against). “This historic vote is an important sign of the United States’ enduring and bipartisan commitment to NATO and to ensuring our Alliance is ready to meet the challenges of today and tomorrow,” said President Joe Biden.
The Biden administration vehemently supported this ratification, which was intended to demonstrate the Atlantic Alliance’s solidity vis-à-vis expansionist Russia. The American vote took place the day after the French Parliament and Italy ratified the accession protocols. Including the United States, 23 of the 30 required countries have already ratified the accession of Finland and Sweden.