Russia Ukraine War Live Updates: Less than 24 hours after Russia signed a deal to unblock grain exports from Black Sea ports, explosions rocked port city of Odesa on Saturday, the Ukrainian military said. “The enemy attacked the Odesa sea trade port with Kalibr cruise missiles,” Ukraine’s Operational Command South wrote on the Telegram messaging app. Two missiles hit infrastructure at the port, while another two were shot down by air defense forces, it said.
Meanwhile, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said there could be no ceasefire unless lost territory was retaken. He said this after hailing the grain export agreement that Russia and Ukraine had signed on Friday. The long-sought deal ends a wartime standoff that has threatened food security around the globe. However, representatives declined to sit at the same table and avoided shaking hands at the agreement ceremony in Istanbul, reflecting wider enmity.
In other news, the Health Ministry said in Lok Sabha that there are no provisions in the law to accommodate Ukraine-returned medical students for practical training. “Therefore, no permission has been given by the NMC to transfer or accommodate any foreign medical students in any Indian medical institute or university,” union minister of state for health and family welfare Dr Bharti Pravin Pawar said.
Three people were killed as 13 Russian missiles hit a military airfield and railway infrastructure in Ukraine's central Kirovohrad region on Saturday, the local governor said.
The rights group said it carried out interviews with dozens of people in the occupied regions of Kherson and Zaporizhzhia, revealing 42 cases where Russian forces had either made civilians disappear or otherwise arbitrarily detained them.
Some had not had any contact with the outside world and many had been tortured. HRW also documented the torture of three members of Ukraine's Territorial Defense Forces who were POWs. Two of them died. (DW)
After Russia invaded Ukraine on Feb. 24, it deployed warships along Ukraine’s Black Sea coast. Ukraine mined those waters to deter a Russian naval attack. That meant that the ports used to export Ukrainian grain were blocked for commercial shipping. Russia also pilfered grain stocks, mined grain fields so that they couldn’t be harvested and destroyed grain storage facilities.
Ukrainian captains will steer vessels packed with grain out of the ports of Odesa, Yuzhne and Chornomorsk. A joint command center with officials from Ukraine, Russia, Turkey and the United Nations will be set up immediately in Istanbul to monitor every movement of the flotillas.
No broad cease-fire has been negotiated, so the ships will be traveling through a war zone. Attacks near the ships or at the ports they use could unravel the agreement. Another risk would be a breach of trust or disagreement between inspectors and joint command officials.
Russia's armed forces are torturing prisoners of war and civilians in southern Ukraine, Human Rights Watch (HRW) alleged Saturday.
Speaking on television, Governor Andriy Raikovych said two security guards at an electricity substation had been killed. He also said that one Ukrainian soldier had been killed and nine more wounded.
➡️ Ukraine has around $10 billion worth of grain available for sale in the wake of the deal signed with Russia to unblock supplies, and will also have a chance to sell the current harvest, Zelenskyy said.
➡️ A number of insurance underwriters are interested in providing cover for grain shipments from Ukraine after the agreement to reopen Black Sea ports although details need to be worked out, a senior London marine insurance market official said.
➡️ Russia's state-owned Rosneft and Gazprom will be able to ship oil to third countries under an adjustment of EU sanctions aimed at limiting the risks to global energy security.
➡️ Credit rating firms Fitch and Scope downgraded Ukraine to a notch above default after Kyiv requested a debt-payment freeze, while adviser JPMorgan said it cannot rule out Ukraine needing more debt relief. (Reuters)
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