Ukraine grain shipments dangerous without Russian approval, Kremlin warns

Russia has warned that any bid to continue grain shipments from Ukraine without its approval would face security risks, hours after Moscow launched missile and drone attacks on Ukrainian ports in retaliation for an attack on a Crimean bridge that it blamed on Kyiv.

The Kremlin refused on Monday to extend a deal to allow Ukraine to export grain via the Black Sea, due to what it called the West’s failure to implement parts of the agreement that should have facilitated international sales of Russian food products and fertiliser.

The United Nations and several members of the G20 group of nations joined Western states in decrying Russia’s decision, while Ukraine said it was willing to continue with shipments that delivered nearly 33 million tonnes of grain and other foods to world markets over the last year.

“We are talking about a zone that is in direct proximity to a combat area, and without appropriate security guarantees certain risks arise there,” Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said on Tuesday. “If something is formalised without Russia then these risks should be taken into account … Here we cannot say how much and which countries are ready to take on these risks,” he added, claiming that it was “an obvious fact that the Kyiv regime is using this zone for military purposes”.

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Mr Peskov also said Russia was ready to fill any supply gap created by its renewed blockade of Ukrainian ports and was now “in contact with our African partners” about the issue.

Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskiy held talks with his military, security and government officials to discuss grain exports, maritime security and other issues hours after Russia fired six cruise missiles and 36 explosive drones at the port cities of Odesa and Mykolaiv.

“What Russia has done is very wrong … It’s going to affect people in the poorest parts of the world,” Taoiseach Leo Varadkar said on the sidelines of an EU summit with Latin American countries in Brussels. “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.”

Ireland’s European Commissioner Mairead McGuinness accused Russia of seeking to “weaponise food in a world where there are massive food shortages and people are going hungry and dying of starvation”.

“We really have to avoid that there are now horrible spikes in price which will impact the poorest. And we need to make sure that Russia changes its mind,” she said, accusing Moscow not only of blocking “this release of grain to global markets, but also damaging the very infrastructure that would allow that to happen”.

Russia denied targeting civilian infrastructure in Odesa and Mykolaiv, and said its overnight attacks had hit a military fuel depot and a ship repair plant which is allegedly making the marine drones that Moscow claims were used to damage the Crimean bridge on Monday.

“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,” said the defence ministry in Moscow.

Ukraine said it shot down all six cruise missiles fired and 31 of 36 drones, and that falling debris damaged port infrastructure in Odesa and a fire broke out at an unnamed facility in Mykolaiv.