A grain terminal, destroyed by a Russian attack, in the port of Chornomorsk in the Odesa region in southern Ukraine, July 19, 2023 (Reuters)

Wednesday’s Coverage: A €20 Billion EU Fund for Kyiv’s Military

Map: Institute for Study of War

UPDATE 1542 GMT:

The death toll in today’s Russian missile strikes on Odesa and Mykolaiv has been raised to three, including a married couple in the latter port city.

Russian shelling of the Kharkiv region in northeast Ukraine has killed a 61-year-old man.

UPDATE 1300 GMT:

Ukraine’s Deputy Economy Minister Taras Kachka has met China’s Vice Commerce Minister Ling Ji in Beijing, in
the first high-level visit by a Ukrainian government official since 2019.

Ling said China is willing to work with Ukraine for mutually-beneficial bilateral economic and trade cooperation.

According to the Chinese Commerce Ministry, Kuchka said:

The Ukrainian side will step up efforts to protect the safety of Chinese-funded enterprises in Ukraine. We are willing to work together with China to promote the healthy and sustainable development of economic and trade relations between the two countries.

The visit came as a Russian missile strike damaged the Chinese Consulate in Odesa in southern Ukraine.

UPDATE 1217 GMT:

Ukraine has begun battlefield use of US-supplied cluster munitions.

The munitions were deployed against entrenched Russian positions on the southern front, said “Ukrainian officials familiar with the matter”.

UPDATE 0937 GMT:

Ukrainian officials have confirmed that two civilians were killed and at least 27 injured in Russia’s overnight attacks on Mykolaiv and Odesa.

In Mykolaiv, one person was killed and 19 wounded. In Odesa, a security guard was killed and at least eight others, including a child, were injured.

UPDATE 0905 GMT:

The Belarus Defense Ministry says its forces will hold joint exercises with Russia’s Wagner Group mercenaries near the border with Poland.

The Ministry did not give a date for the exercises, but said that Belarus special operations forces and Wagner representatives “will work out training and combat tasks” this week.

On Wednesday, Wagner founder Yevgeny Prigozhin released a video which confirmed that he is in Belarus (see 0708 GMT).

UPDATE 0854 GMT:

The European Union’s foreign policy head Josep Borrell says Russia’s attacks on Ukrainian grain storage and ports displays “a barbarian attitude which will be taken into consideration” by Thursday’s meeting of the EU Foreign Affairs Council in Brussels.

Borrell said of the attacks and of Vladimir Putin’s shredding of the Black Sea deal:

Not only do they withdraw from the grain agreement in order to export grain from Ukraine, but they are burning the grain.

What we already know is that this is going to create a big, a huge food crisis in the world.

UPDATE 0842 GMT:

Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelenskiy has commented on the latest Russian missile and drone attacks, including on Mykolaiv and Odesa in the south of the country.

UPDATE 0855 GMT:

The European Union’s foreign policy head Josep Borrell says Russia’s attacks on ports and grain facilities display “a barbarian attitude which will be taken into consideration” at today’s meeting of the EU’s Foreign Affairs Council in Brussels.

Borrell said of the attacks and of Vladimir Putin’s shredding of the Black Sea deal:

Not only they withdraw from the grain agreement in order to export grain from Ukraine, but they are burning the grain

What we already know is that this is going to create a big, a huge food crisis in the world.

UPDATE 0814 GMT:

Politico Europe profiles how the leading ice cream company Ben & Jerry’s supports groups and activists defending Vladimir Putin’s invasion of Ukraine.

Ben and Jerry’s, which built its brand as an ethical business, funds the “Eisenhower Media Network”, which took out a full-page ad in the New York Times to blame US and NATO “deliberate provocations” for Putin’s invasion.

Ben and Jerry’s presented its 2022 Pierre Sprey Award for Journalism to Aaron Maté, a disinformation activist who regularly denies the Russian-supported Assad regime’s chemical attacks in Syria as well as the Russian war crimes in Ukraine. The runner-up was Benjamin Abelow, a polemicist who says “primary responsibility” for Russia’s attempt to conquer Ukraine “lies with the West, in particular with the United States”.

In May, Ben Cohen, the co-founder of the company, amplified the declaration of academic Jeffrey Sachs that “the war in Ukraine was provoked”.

Cohen told Politico Europe, “Today, not only are [US arms manufacturers] providing weapons to all the new NATO countries, but they’re providing weapons to Ukraine.”

He insisted, “I’m not supporting Russia, I’m not supporting Ukraine. I’m supporting negotiations to end the war instead of providing more weapons to continue the war.”

Maté echoed that the US is responsible for “prolonging” the war and “sabotaging the diplomacy that could have ended it”.

Asked about his denial of war crimes, he revised his position, “I’ve never heard of a war where war crimes are not committed.”

Tymofiy Mylovanov, president of the Kyiv School of Economics, responded:

What matters is that there was Mariupol and Bucha, where tens of thousands of people were killed…..

Things like war are difficult to understand unless you experience them. This is very easy to get confused when you are sitting, you know, somewhere far from the facts and you have surrounded yourself by an echo chamber of people and sources that you agree with.

In that sense, I invite these people to come to Ukraine and judge for themselves what the truth is.

UPDATE 0758 GMT:

Russian shelling has killed a 40-year-old man in the border town of Vovchansk in the Kharkiv region in northeast Ukraine.

Governor Oleh Syniehubov reported, “At least four private residential buildings and outbuildings were damaged in the city.”

UPDATE 0708 GMT:

On Wednesday, Wagner Group mercenary leader Yevgeny Prigozhin finally appeared in Belarus on video — in silhouette at dusk — almost a month after his rebellion against the Kremlin.

UPDATE 0657 GMT:

The Ukraine Air Force says it downed 5 of 19 cruise missiles and 13 of 19 drones fired by Russia on Odesa and Mykolaiv early Thursday (see Original Entry).

UPDATE 0639 GMT:

The head of the Belarus Red Cross has acknowledged its role in Russia’s mass deportations of Ukrainian children.

A report broadcast Wednesday showed Dzmitry Shautsou visiting the Russian-occupied city of Lysychansk in the Luhansk region in eastern Ukraine.

Shautsou said his organization “is taking…an active part” in the deportations, bringing Ukrainian children to Belarus for “health improvement”.

The statement has bolstered calls for the International Criminal Court to charge Belarusian leader Alexander Lukashenko with war crimes.

The ICC issued arrest warrants for Vladimir Putin and Russia’s “children’s rights commissioner” Maria Lvova-Belova in March.

Ukrainian officials say it has documented the forcible transfer of more than 19,000 children to Russia or Russian-occupied territory.

Video earlier this week showed Russia’s Grudzev Sisters singing for children in Belarus, including some of the deported Ukrainian minors. The performers declared, “So that we live in peace, so that Biden dies, so that…Zelenskiy dies and Putin prospers and takes all of Ukraine.”

ORIGINAL ENTRY: Russian missile strike has injured at least 18 people in Mykolaiv in southern Ukraine, a day after an attack destroyed grain stores and knocked out a port in the Odesa region.

Mykolaiv Governor Vitaliy Kim said nine of the injured, including five children, were taken to hospital early Thursday.

Two others were rescued from rubble. “It is a miracle they were saved,” he said.

The Russians used Onix Kh-22 anti-ship missiles, said the Ukraine military. A garage and a three-story building in the city center were struck.

“Strong explosions” were also reported in Odesa, attacked for the third consecutive night. Two people are in hospital.

Early Wednesday, Russian missiles and drones broke through air defenses to hit targets such as the Chornomorsk port.

About 60,000 tons of grain, which should have been loaded and shipped 60 days ago under the Black Sea grain deal, were destroyed.

Ukraine Agriculture Minister Mykola Solsky confirmed, “The night-time attack put a considerable part of the grain export infrastructure in the port of Chornomorsk out of operation.”

The Ukraine Air Force said six high-precision Onix missiles were directed at the port. Odesa Mayor Hennadii Trukhanov posted on Facebook, “We do not recall such a scale of attack since the beginning of a full-scale invasion.”

One missile left a huge crater near a dormitory building across the street from the grain facility. Windows in the dormitory and the courthouse were blown out.

Other attacks caused injuries, including to a 9-year-old boy, from debris and glass. A strike on a wholesale market and storage facility set off fireworks above a burning warehouse.

Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelenskiy summarized:

Today’s attack by Russian terrorists on Odesa proves that their target is not only Ukraine, and not only the lives of our people. About a million tons of food is stored in the ports that were attacked today. This is the volume that should have been delivered to consumer countries in Africa and Asia long ago….

Everyone is affected by this Russian terror. Everyone in the world should be interested in bringing 🇷🇺 to justice for its terror.

Russia: We May Attack Ships in Black Sea

On Monday, Vladimir Putin ripped up the July 2022 deal lifting Russia’s blockade of three Ukrainian ports on the Black Sea, jeopardizing essential shipments of grains and foodstuffs to areas such as Africa.

Russian officials pledged a “mass revenge strike”. They followed up on Wednesday with the threat to intercept — and possibly attack — any ship travelling to or from a Ukrainian port: “All vessels sailing in the waters of the Black Sea to Ukrainian ports will be regarded as potential carriers of military cargo.”

US officials said they have information that the Russians have laid additional sea mines in the approaches to the ports.

National Security Council spokesperson Adam Hodge said, “We believe that this is a coordinated effort to justify any attacks against civilian ships in the Black Sea and lay blame on Ukraine for these attacks.”

Ukraine said on Wednesday that it is establishing a temporary shipping route in the Black Sea via neighboring Romania.

Vasyl Shkurakov, Ukraine’s Acting Minister for Communities, Territories and Infrastructure Development, informed the UN’s International Shipping Organization, “[The route’s] goal is to facilitate the unblocking of international shipping in the northwestern part of the Black Sea.”