Cereals: Putin “open to discussions”, Ukrainian infrastructure remains targeted

Vladimir Putin promised Monday to deliver free grain to six African countries “in the coming weeks”, after the abandonment in July of the agreement which allowed Ukraine to export freely and on which no major progress has been made. been announced.

Russia has also again bombed infrastructure in the Izmail district (southwest), whose port on the Danube has become crucial for Ukraine’s exports since the re-establishment of the blockade in the Black Sea, while that Volodymyr Zelensky said in the evening was near the front line in the east.

“Donetsk region. We are visiting the combat brigades defending Ukraine, which are part of the Donetsk tactical operational group,” said the Ukrainian president, while a video showed him meeting soldiers.

– “New proposals” –

“We are about to conclude agreements with six African states” to which “we intend to supply free” cereals “in the coming weeks”, had previously assured in Sochi, in the southwest of Russia, Vladimir Putin, without specifying the countries concerned.

Russian President Vladimir Putin welcomes his Turkish counterpart Recep Tayyip Erdogan, September 4, 2023 in Sochi (POOL/AFP/Mikhail KLIMENTYEV)

The Russian Head of State received his Turkish counterpart Recep Tayyip Erdogan, one of the rare NATO leaders to pursue dialogue at the highest level with the Kremlin.

Mr. Erdogan, who also plays the middleman in the thorny issue of Ukrainian grain exports, said, without further details, preparing “new proposals” with the UN to “obtain results”.

Vladimir Putin meanwhile simply said he was once again ready to “consider the possibility of resuscitating the agreement” as soon as deliveries of Russian agricultural products abroad were no longer hampered.

“Today we received further confirmation that all ‘negotiations’ with #Putin are misleading and unnecessary… He clearly lives in his own reality, where ‘everyone is responsible except him’,” said commented Mikhaïlo Podoliak, one of the main advisers of President Zelensky.

The challenge is to negotiate the possible resumption – in time for the autumn harvest – of the vital cereal agreement for the world’s food supply, which Moscow ended in mid-July.

Found under the aegis of Turkey and the United Nations in the summer of 2022, it aimed to protect grain exports through Ukraine’s Black Sea ports.

But the Kremlin criticizes the Western sanctions which, according to him, complicate the placing on the international market of Russian products, in particular fertilizers, and awaits concrete solutions to return to the agreement.

– Bomb threats –

These discussions took place at a time when the number of drone attacks in Ukraine, but also on Russian territory, has increased significantly in recent weeks.

Massive drone attacks in the Odessa region (AFP/Sylvie HUSSON)

On the night of Sunday to Monday, Ukraine claimed to have destroyed 23 explosive drones launched by Russia on the south, a dozen having touched its ground, without however causing any victims.

The governor of Odessa, in the southwest, Oleg Kiper deplored the damage to “warehouses, production buildings, agricultural machinery and equipment of industrial enterprises” in the Izmail district.

During the night from Saturday to Sunday, industrial sites had already been hit on the Danube.

Cereal exports from Ukraine (AFP/Archives/Jonathan WALTER, Anibal MAIZ CACERES)

The Russian army also said on Monday that it had destroyed in the Black Sea four speedboats carrying Ukrainian soldiers who were sailing towards the west of the Crimean peninsula, annexed by Moscow in 2014.

And, in the evening, the governor of the Russian border region of Bryansk, Alexander Bogomaz, assured that “a Ukrainian sabotage and reconnaissance group” which was trying to enter Russia had been “repelled”.

For its part, Ukraine claimed on Monday limited territorial gains on the southern front – the subject of all attention since Kiev said it had opened a small breach around the locality of Robotyné – and the recovery of three km2 near Bakhmout , in the East.

Modest successes and swept away by the back of the hand by Vladimir Putin who estimated Monday once again that this counter-offensive was a “failure”.

In Kiev, the authorities reported a new bomb alert received for all schools in the capital, before revealing that it was false, just like the first, on the day of the start of the school year, September 1.

Local police later said they had “received information” about explosive devices placed in “all shopping and entertainment centers” in kyiv, without further details.

At the same time, Ukrainian Defense Minister Oleksiï Reznikov officially tendered his resignation, the day after President Zelensky announced his replacement, after several corruption scandals affecting his ministry and in the midst of a conflict with Russia.

Finally, a Russian Mi-8 helicopter pilot opposed to the invasion defected and joined Ukraine at the controls of his aircraft after a special operation mounted in secret, according to Ukrainian military intelligence

© 2023 AFP

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