<\/p>\n
Ukraine\u2019s maritime grain exports were halted Sunday after Russia suspended its participation in a landmark agreement that allowed the vital shipments, blaming drone attacks on its ships in Crimea.<\/p>\n
The July deal to unlock grain exports signed between Russia and Ukraine and brokered by Turkey and the UN, is critical to easing the global food crisis caused by the conflict.<\/p>\n
The agreement had already allowed more than nine million tonnes of Ukrainian grain to be exported and was due to be renewed on November 19.<\/p>\n
On Saturday, Russia said it was halting its participation after its army accused Kyiv of a \u201cmassive\u201d drone attack on its Black Sea fleet, which Ukraine labelled a \u201cfalse pretext\u201d.<\/p>\n
US President Joe Biden called the move \u201cpurely outrageous\u201d while Secretary of State Antony Blinken said Moscow was \u201cweaponising food\u201d.<\/p>\n
On Sunday, the EU urged Russia to \u201crevert its decision.\u201d<\/p>\n
The centre coordinating the logistics of the deal said in a statement that no traffic was planned for Sunday.<\/p>\n
\u201cA joint agreement has not been reached at the JCC for the movement of inbound and outbound vessels on 30 October,\u201d it said. \u201cThere are more than ten vessels both outbound and inbound waiting to enter the corridor.\u201d<\/p>\n
Ukraine\u2019s foreign minister said on Twitter that Russia was blocking \u201ctwo million tons of grain on 176 vessels already at sea\u201d that he said was \u201cenough to feed seven million people.\u201d<\/p>\n
He accused Moscow of having planned to \u201cresume its hunger games\u201d in advance and said the Black Sea explosions were \u201c220 kilometres away from the grain corridor.\u201d<\/p>\n
Kyiv and the UN earlier urged that the agreement remains in force.<\/p>\n
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky called the Russian move \u201can absolutely transparent intention of Russia to return the threat of large-scale famine to Africa and Asia\u201d.<\/p>\n
Stephane Dujarric, the spokesman for the UN secretary-general, said: \u201cIt is vital that all parties refrain from any action that would imperil the Black Sea Grain Initiative which is a critical humanitarian effort\u201d.<\/p>\n
\u2013 \u2018Peddling false claims<\/strong>\u2018 \u2013 The Russian army claimed to have \u201cdestroyed\u201d nine aerial drones and seven maritime ones in an attack on the port early Saturday.<\/p>\n \u201cIn light of the terrorist activities carried out by the Kyiv regime with the participation of British experts against ships of the Black Sea fleet and civilian vessels involved in the security of grain corridors, Russia suspends its participation in the implementation of the agreement on the export of agricultural products from Ukrainian ports,\u201d the Russian defence ministry said on Telegram.<\/p>\n Moscow\u2019s forces alleged British \u201cspecialists\u201d, who they said was based in the southern Ukrainian city of Ochakiv, had helped prepare and train Kyiv to carry out the strike.<\/p>\n In a further singling out of the UK \u2014 which Moscow sees as one of the most unfriendly Western countries \u2014 Russia said the same British unit was involved in explosions on the Nord Stream gas pipelines last month.<\/p>\n Britain strongly rebutted both claims, saying \u201cthe Russian Ministry of Defence is resorting to peddling false claims of an epic scale\u201d.<\/p>\n Russia\u2019s foreign ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said Moscow would raise the blasts and the alleged drone attack at the UN Security Council.<\/p>\n Moscow\u2019s military said ships targeted at their Crimean base were involved in the grain deal.<\/p>\n Russia had recently criticised the deal, saying its own grain exports have suffered due to Western sanctions.<\/p>\n \u2013 \u2018Massive\u2019 attack <\/strong>\u2013 Attacks on Crimea, annexed by Moscow in 2014, have increased in recent weeks, as Kyiv presses a counter-offensive in the south to retake territory held by Moscow for months.<\/p>\n In early October, Moscow\u2019s bridge linking Crimea to the Russian mainland \u2014 personally inaugurated by President Vladimir Putin in 2018 \u2014 was damaged by a blast that Putin blamed on Ukraine.<\/p>\n Saturday\u2019s Crimea attack came as Ukraine pressed in a counter-offensive in the south aiming to retake lands held by Moscow for months.<\/p>\n Kyiv said Sunday that its troops in the south are \u201cholding their positions and hit the enemy in order to create conditions for further offensive actions.\u201d<\/p>\n Moscow-installed authorities in Kherson, just north of Crimea, have vowed to turn the city into a fortress, preparing for an inevitable assault.<\/p>\n Pro-Russian separatists fighting alongside Moscow announced a new prisoner exchange with Kyiv Saturday, saying 50 will return home from each side.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Ukraine\u2019s maritime grain exports were halted Sunday after Russia suspended its participation in a landmark agreement that allowed the vital shipments, blaming drone attacks on its ships in Crimea. The July deal to unlock grain exports signed between Russia and Ukraine and brokered by Turkey and the UN, is critical to easing the global food […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":1238648,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[56],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1238646","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-world"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2022\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1238646","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2022\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2022\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2022\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2022\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1238646"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2022\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1238646\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2022\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1238646"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2022\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1238646"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2022\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1238646"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
Sevastopol in Moscow-annexed Crimea has been targeted several times in recent months and serves as the headquarters for the Black Sea fleet and a logistical hub for operations in Ukraine.<\/p>\n
Mikhail Razvozhayev, the Moscow-installed governor of Sevastopol, said Saturday\u2019s drone attack was the \u201cmost massive\u201d the peninsula had seen.<\/p>\n