Putin ‘preparing to attack ships in Black Sea’ as Moscow attacks Odessa again – live

The Russian military is preparing for possible attacks on civilian transport ships in the Black Sea, the White House has warned.

It comes days after Russia suspended participation in a wartime deal that allowed the flow of grain from Ukraine to countries around the world.

Since pulling out of the Black Sea grain deal this week, Russia has already targeted Ukraine’s grain export ports in Odessa with missile and drone strikes.

Some 54,400 tons of English were destroyed in the attacks.

White House National Security Council spokesman Adam Hodge said in a statement: “Our information indicates that Russia has placed additional sea mines on the approaches to Ukrainian ports.

“We believe that this is a coordinated effort to justify any attacks on civilian ships in the Black Sea and to blame Ukraine for these attacks.”

It was a month after Vladimir Putin’s invasion of Ukraine. Russian forces had withdrawn from the environs of kyiv, and in his wake, Bel Trew and his team stumbled across a body in an abandoned Russian camp.

His hands were tied. He had been burned and shot in the back. The soldiers said that he was a teenager.

As Bel tried to figure out who she was and what had happened, she discovered a nightmare world: a nation struggling to find thousands of missing people and identify their dead.

Vladimir Putin will not attend a summit in South Africa next month, allowing the hosts to avoid a decision on whether or not to arrest the Russian leader thanks to an international warrant on war crimes charges.

As a signatory to the International Criminal Court (ICC) that issued the order, South Africa is expected to arrest Putin once he sets foot in the country. Although he has refused to comply with that obligation in the past, he allowed safe passage to then-Sudan President Omar al-Bashir in 2015, who was facing war crimes charges against his own people.

The ICC issued an arrest warrant for Putin and Russian child rights commissioner Maria Lvova-Belova in March in connection with the forced deportation of children from Ukraine to Russia.

Poland’s Defense Ministry is monitoring the situation on the border with Belarus and is prepared for various scenarios, it said on Thursday, after Belarus said mercenaries from Russia’s Wagner Group would take part in military exercises near the border.

“Poland’s borders are secure, we are monitoring the situation on our eastern border on an ongoing basis and are prepared for various scenarios as the situation develops,” the Defense Ministry said in an emailed statement.

Germany is working with allies to ensure Ukrainian grain does not rot in silos after Russia withdrew from an export deal, and will step up work to transport the grain by rail, Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock said on Thursday. .

Speaking on the sidelines of a meeting of European Union foreign ministers in Brussels, Baerbock accused Russia of blackmailing and trying to weaponize grain at the expense of the world’s poorest.

Russian President Vladimir Putin has accused Western countries of “perverting” the grain deal, brokered by the United Nations and Turkey.

“Hundreds of thousands of people, if not millions, urgently need grain from Ukraine, which is why we are working with all our international partners so that grain in Ukraine does not rot in silos in the coming weeks, but reaches the people of the world who urgently need it,” Baerbock said.

In the latest intelligence update, the UK MoD has said that Russia “was unable to renew its participation in the Black Sea Grain Initiative”.

The ministry added: “This effectively annulled the security agreement which, despite the war, had guaranteed safe passage for ships exporting grain from Ukraine. Russia aims to deter all merchant ships from Ukrainian ports.”

A teenage girl was killed in a Ukrainian drone strike on a Crimean settlement that damaged four administrative buildings, the Russian-installed Crimean chief said on Thursday.

Sergei Aksyonov, the official, said the strike took place in the northwestern part of the Black Sea peninsula, where he said emergency services and others were working.

“Unfortunately there were victims. A teenager was murdered. I express my deepest and most sincere condolences to her family and friends. All necessary support will be provided to the family.”

There was no immediate reaction to his Ukraine claim.

Russia seized and annexed Crimea, where the Black Sea Fleet is based, from Ukraine in 2014.

kyiv says that Crimea is Ukrainian and that it intends to take it back by force as part of its campaign to drive Russian troops out of its territory.

The Kremlin on Wednesday accused the West of turning a blind eye to what it called “terrorist attacks” committed by Ukraine inside Russia, pointing to what it said was silence this week over a deadly attack on the Crimean Bridge that it blamed on Russia. Kiev.

The Belarusian Defense Ministry said in a statement on Thursday that the country’s military was continuing exercises with fighters from Russia’s Wagner Group mercenary force at a military base near the city of Brest, on the border with Poland.

On the front line around Bakhmut in eastern Ukraine, the scene of some of the heaviest fighting of the war, soldiers await supplies from Britain. Without our missiles, count Askold Krushelnyckymoving forward is more difficult, and every meter they travel is “soaked in blood”.

I am standing outside a base, concealed by camouflage netting, for soldiers of air defense units belonging to Ukraine10th Separate Mountain Assault Brigade. Beside me, the commander, a captain, identified by his nom de guerre “Kamin” (which translates as “rock”), reels off the impressive amount of Russian weaponry that his men have shot from the sky. Eight fighter jets, six helicopters and more than three dozen drones of different types, worth tens of millions of pounds.

Ukraine’s military said it shot down five cruise missiles and 13 attack drones launched by Russian forces overnight in the southern Mykolaiv and Odessa regions.

He said Russia fired 19 cruise missiles and 19 drones in total, without specifying where the other missiles hit.