Impasse in Black Sea grain talks as Romania denies being hit by Russian drone

The Kremlin said it would not lift a naval blockade on Ukrainian grain shipments until the West made it easier for Moscow to export food and fertiliser, as Romania denied that a Russian drone had hit its territory during the latest attack on Ukraine’s ports.

Russian president Vladimir Putin hosted Turkish counterpart Recep Tayyip Erdogan on Monday for talks on renewing a Black Sea grain deal, while Ukraine said its forces were advancing in eastern and southern areas and its defence minister Oleksiy Reznikov resigned.

Moscow withdrew in July from a deal brokered a year earlier by the United Nations and Turkey to safeguard grain exports from Ukraine’s Black Sea ports, accusing the West of reneging on pledges to facilitate Russian grain and fertiliser exports and claiming that Kyiv was using the deal as cover to develop marine drones and launch them at Russian targets.

“We will be ready to consider the possibility of reviving the grain deal … as soon as all the agreements on lifting restrictions on the export of Russian agricultural products are fully implemented,” Mr Putin said, alleging that the West had “cheated” on the deal.

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Mr Erdogan sounded a more optimistic note after a first round of talks in Sochi on Russia’s Black Sea coast, saying Turkey believed “we will reach a solution that will meet the expectations in a short time”.

The two leaders also discussed a Russian initiative to send one million tonnes of grain to Turkey for processing and then delivery to six African countries free of charge, in what Moscow frames as a good will gesture and Kyiv regards as sheer cynicism.

Russia has launched almost nightly strikes on Ukraine’s ports since exiting the grain deal, and on Monday targeted ports on the River Danube in an attack lasting 3½ hours. Officials said 23 of 32 Shahed drones were shot down over the Odesa and Dnipropetrovsk regions, but some hit storage and grain infrastructure close to where the Danube flows into the Black Sea, near the Ukraine-Romania border.

Bucharest “categorically” denied a Ukrainian claim that a Russian drone exploded on its territory, a denial that Kyiv attributed to the desire of Romania – and other Nato states – to avoid any kind of escalation with Moscow.

“It is pointless to deny that something came down there. And we are stating confidently, based on evidence, that these were Shahed drones,” said Ukrainian foreign minister Dmytro Kuleba.

“We have photographic evidence. We are ready to share it, but the final conclusions will be drawn by the Romanian authorities… It is easier to draw conclusions than to do something about them. That is why there is such a cautious reaction,” he added. “Our partners tend to try not to escalate the interpretation of certain events so as not to get involved in a direct conflict.”

Romania denied a Ukrainian claim in February that a Russian missile flew through its airspace, and last November two people in eastern Poland were killed in an explosion that Warsaw eventually blamed on a Ukrainian air defence rocket rather than a Russian missile.

Ukraine’s armed forces said they were making slow but steady gains in the southeastern Zaporizhzhia region and around the occupied eastern city of Bakhmut, while fighting off renewed Russian attacks near the northeastern towns of Kupiansk and Lyman.

Ukrainian defence minister Oleksiy Reznikov resigned on Monday at the request of President Volodymyr Zelenskiy, who said it was time for “new approaches” at the ministry.

Mr Reznikov spearheaded Ukraine’s efforts to acquire vital western weaponry to combat Russia’s full-scale invasion. Recent graft scandals have rattled the ministry but he is not suspected of corruption.