Ukraine Russia today: Putin’s forces pressed back in south as Moscow launches Odesa strikes

Irish premier Leo Varadkar has actually said he does not think Russia’s ending of the Black Sea grain deal will impact the cost of groceries.

The Kremlin has said the contract will be suspended up until Moscow’s needs to raise constraints on exports of Russian food and fertiliser to the world are fulfilled.

Speaking in Brussels on the 2nd day of an EU top, Mr Varadkar said: “I don’t think we’re at that point yet. When the war in Ukraine started there was a big shock to energy prices and then a big shock to food prices as well, but we found ways around that and we found ways to adapt to it by finding other sources of energy, for example.

“So I don’t think we’re going to see another spike in inflation because of this, but we do need to work on it. There are other ways to get grain out of Ukraine, for example, through Romania and through Poland.

“If the Russians persist in this policy well then we’ll have to find other ways to get the grain and to get the fertiliser out. What Russia has done is very wrong, it’s not just going to affect people in Ukraine, it’s going to affect people in the poorest part of the world.

“I’m here talking to countries and leaders from Latin America, from the Caribbean, you can add to that Africa and Asia, it’s people in those countries that will bear the worst effects of what Russia has decided to do. We have to try and get around what they’ve done now by finding ways to get the grain out of Ukraine through European ports.”

Arriving at the top on Tuesday, Irish Prime Minister Leo Varadkar said the communique needed to be “very clear on Ukraine, this is a war of aggression.”

“There were talks late last night on the language, almost every country was able to sign up to a text that was clearly supportive of Ukraine, its right for independence, for freedom. One or two held out. Let’s see again this morning,” he said.

“It’s sometimes better to have no conclusions at all than to have language that doesn’t mean anything but we’re not at that point yet,” he included.

Luxembourg Prime Minister Xavier Bettel said the communique might not be utilized to “rewrite history.”

“The fact is that Russia aggressed Ukraine … we have to face the reality,” he informed press reporters.

He recommended the declaration might wind up stating that some particular nations did not concur with the language on Ukraine.

“We still can have a remark that says nearly all the countries accept (the language) … It’s a shame if we cannot agree, but I’m not here to rewrite history,” he said.

Chile’s Foreign Minister Alberto van Klaveren said his federal government was sorry for the disagreement.

“We’re very sorry for the situation really and we’re very surprised that there are members of our group which oppose any resolution concerning the war in Ukraine,” he said.

“We think it’s a war of aggression; that’s the position of Chile.”

Leaders from the European Union, Latin America and the Caribbean were having a hard time on Tuesday to settle on a joint declaration on the war in Ukraine, with some Latin American nations withstanding EU pressure for a clear condemnation of Russia.

The wrangling threatened to eclipse the top in Brussels as the EU attempts to revitalise relations with Latin America as part of a geopolitical shake-up triggered by Russia‘s war on Ukraine and growing wariness of China.

The EU had aimed to include condemnation of Russia‘s invasion of Ukraine as part of a broader declaration setting out the leaders’ conclusions of the top. But as the talks entered their 2nd day, no contract had actually been reached.

Countries with close political and financial ties to Russia, such as Cuba and Nicaragua, were withstanding efforts to consist of language condemning Russia, according to authorities knowledgeable about the settlements.

A draft text seen by Reuters revealed a paragraph that condemned “the ongoing war against Ukraine“ and referred to U.N. resolutions that “deplore in the strongest terms the aggression by the Russian Federation” had actually been rubbed out.

The file simply described “specific national positions” of the nations represented at the top, which combined some 50 leaders from EU and the Community of Latin American and Caribbean States (CELAC).

German Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock on Tuesday said every rocket fired by Russia at the Ukrainian port of Odesa was likewise the equivalent of shooting a rocket at individuals who are starving worldwide.

The remark stacked criticism on Moscow as Russia fired at Ukrainian ports a day after taking out of a U.N.-backed deal to let Kyiv export grain.

Russia explained its wave of rocket and drone attacks on Ukrainian ports as vengeance for attacks introduced by Kyiv. Moscow’s choice to withdraw from the grain deal triggered the United Nations to caution it ran the risk of developing appetite worldwide.

Two individuals were killed and their teenaged child injured in an attack on the Crimean Bridge – linking the Russian mainland to the peninsula.

The bridge, likewise referred to as the Kerch Bridge, is a significant artery for Russian soldiers combating in Ukraine and a status task personally opened by President Vladimir Putin. The bridge had actually had just just recently went back to complete operation after suffering serious damage in a comparable attack last October.

Traffic along the 19km-long roadway and rail bridge was stopped for 6 hours, following reports of numerous surges at around 3am on Monday early morning.

Here’s whatever we understand about the attack on the Crimean Bridge and its value to Moscow:

Russia‘s Defence Ministry said on Tuesday it had hit military targets in two Ukrainian port cities overnight in what it called “a mass revenge strike,” a day after an attack on the Crimean bridge which it blamed on Kyiv.

The ministry said it had struck Odesa, where the Ukrainian navy has a facility, and Mykolaiv on Ukraine‘s Black Sea coast.

“The armed forces of the Russian Federation carried out a mass retaliatory strike overnight using precision sea-based weapons against facilities where terrorist acts against the Russian Federation were being prepared using uncrewed boats,” the ministry said in a statement.

It said it had struck a ship repair plant near Odesa where such boats were being built.

“In addition, storage facilities holding around 70,000 tons of fuel used to supply the Ukrainian military’s equipment were destroyed” near the cities of Mykolaiv and Odesa, it said.

It said all the targets had actually been struck and destroyed, pointing out fires and detonations as proof.

Reuters might not separately verify the account.

Ukraine‘s air force said earlier that six Kalibr cruise missiles and 31 out of 36 drones had been shot down, mostly over the coastal Odesa and Mykolaiv regions in the south.

Russian forces have actually advanced by as much as 2 kilometres (1.2 miles) in the instructions of the city of Kupiansk in Ukraine‘s northeastern Kharkiv region, TASS cited Russia‘s defence ministry as saying on Tuesday.

Russia is using grain as ammunition, Poland’s Agriculture Minister Robert Telus informed Reuters, talking about the collapse of the year-old U.N.-brokered deal that permitted Ukraine export grain through the Black Sea.

Telus advised EU to help enhance grain logistics as more Ukraine grain will start streaming through borders after the harvest.

The Kerch Bridge has both tactical and symbolic worth to the Russian president, composes Bel Trew:

A pre-dawn lethal attack on the Kerch Bridge is the 2nd such attack in simply 9 months. As Ukraine presses ahead with a summertime counteroffensive, it totals up to a personal jab at Vladimir Putin, who has actually frequently boasted about its building.

The 12-mile rail and roadway structure – the longest in Europe – was a £2.7bn status task and was opened by Mr Putin 5 years earlier. It connects the Russian mainland and inhabited Crimea, which Moscow unlawfully annexed from Ukraine in 2014. When it was opened, Mr Putin boasted that Russian tsars had actually imagined building this “miracle” however had actually never ever been successful. Russian state media hailed it as the “construction of the century”.

Kyiv reported a “complicated” scenario in combating in eastern Ukraine and success in parts of the south on Tuesday as it continued with its counteroffensive versus inhabiting Russian forces.

“The situation is complicated but under control (in the east),” General Oleksander Syrskyi, leader of Ukrainian ground forces, said on the Telegram messaging app.

He said Russia had focused forces in the instructions of Kupiansk in the northeastern area of Kharkiv, however that Ukrainian soldiers were holding them back.

Ukrainian authorities have significantly pointed to a surge of Russian military activity near Kupiansk and neighboring Lyman in the northeast. Both cities were retaken by Ukraine late in 2015.

On Monday, a representative for Ukraine‘s eastern forces said the Russian military had actually accumulated more than 100,000 soldiers and more than 900 tanks in the location.

Syrskyi included that Russian soldiers were bring up reserves in the Bakhmut sector in eastern Ukraine to attempt to stop Ukrainian forces advancing.