A milestone agreement aimed at easing the global food crisis was signed by Kyiv and Moscow on Friday. Author: BULENT KILIC (AFP)
Russia said on Sunday that its missile fire on a Ukrainian port, the centerpiece of a deal to export fresh grain, had destroyed Western-supplied weapons after the attack sparked outrage from Ukraine's allies.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyi condemned Saturday's strike on the Odessa port - which came just a day after the warring parties struck a deal to resume exports from the facility - as "Russian barbarism".
Turkey helped broker the deal and said immediately after the twin cruise missile strike that it had received assurances from Moscow that Russian forces were not responsible.
But the Russian Defense Ministry retracted the denial on Sunday, saying the strikes destroyed a Ukrainian military vessel and weapons supplied by Washington.
"High-precision, long-range missiles fired from the sea destroyed a docked Ukrainian warship and a stockpile of US-supplied anti-ship missiles to the Kyiv regime," it said.
"The Ukrainian Army Repair and Modernization Plant was also out of service."
The attack on the port cast a shadow over a landmark agreement aimed at easing the global food crisis that was hammered out after months of negotiations and signed in Istanbul.
Russia also carried out an artillery campaign over Ukraine's second city, Kharkiv. By SERGEY BOBOK (AFP)
Zelenskyy said the strikes on Odessa showed that Moscow could not be trusted to keep its promises and that dialogue with Moscow was becoming increasingly unsustainable.
"This blatant Russian barbarism brings us even closer to obtaining the weapons we need for our victory," Zelenskyy said in a late-night address to the nation.
Based on an agreement brokered by Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan and UN chief Antonio Guterres, Odessa is one of three designated export hubs.
Mykolaiv attacks
Ukrainian officials said grain was being stored at the port at the time of the strike, although food stocks did not appear to be affected.
Guterres, who presided over Friday's signing ceremony, condemned the attack "unequivocally".
The United States "strongly condemned" the attack, with Foreign Secretary Antony Blinken saying it "raises serious doubts about the credibility of Russia's commitment to yesterday's agreement".
There was no response from Moscow until Sunday, but Turkish Defense Minister Hulusi Akar said Russia denied the attack.
"The Russians told us they had absolutely nothing to do with this attack," he told the state-run Anadolu Agency.
Odesa Oblast officials said the strikes injured people and damaged Odesa's port infrastructure, without elaborating on the number or severity of injuries.
The first major agreement between the countries since February's Russian invasion of Ukraine is aimed at alleviating "acute hunger" that the UN says an additional 47 million people are facing as a result of the war.
Main ports in the Black Sea region of Ukraine. Author (AFP)
When signing, Ukraine warned that it would take an "immediate military response" if Russia violated the agreement and attacked its ships or staged an invasion around its ports.
Zelenskyy said that the responsibility for enforcing the agreement fell to the UN, which is a co-guarantor of the agreement along with Turkey. Turkey said after the attack that it was committed to the deal.
The agreement includes points for guiding Ukrainian grain ships along safe corridors that avoid known mines in the Black Sea.
Huge quantities of wheat and other grain have been blocked in Ukrainian ports by Russian warships and mines laid by Kyiv to ward off the feared amphibious assault.
Zelenskyy said around 20 million tonnes of production from last year's harvest and the current crop would be exported under the deal, estimating the value of Ukraine's grain stocks at around $10 billion.
Diplomats expect the grain to start flowing in full only in mid-August.
The deal in Istanbul brought little relief on the battlefield, where Russian forces carried out shelling across a vast front line over the weekend, Ukraine's presidency said on Sunday.
It said that amid attacks in the industrial east and south, four Russian cruise missiles hit a residential area in the southern city of Mykolaiv on Saturday, injuring five people, including a teenager.
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