US Ambassador Linda Thomas-Greenfield and Ukraine’s permanent representative, Sergei Kyslytsya, in discussion at the UN Security Council, July 21, 2023 (Eduardo Munoz Alvarez/AP)

Friday’s Coverage: US Sanctions 120 Entities To Restrict Russia’s Invasion

Map: Institute for Study of War

UPDATE 1443 GMT:

A cameraman for Germany’s Deutsche Welle, Yevhen Shilko, has reportedly been wounded in a Russian cluster bomb attack in the Donetsk region in eastern Ukraine.

A Ukrainian officer was killed, and several others were seriously injured.

The news broke as Russia’s Deputy UN Ambassador Dmitry Polyansky was asserting — without evidence — that Rostislav Zhuravlev, a correspondent with Russian State outlet RIA Novosti, died from wounds suffered in a Ukrainian cluster munitions attacks. Polyansky said three other RIA crew were wounded.

UPDATE 1032 GMT:

Turkish Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan has dismissed Kyiv’s proposal to ship Ukrainian grain without an agreement with Russia, following Vladimir Putin’s shredding of the July 2022 deal lifting Moscow’s blockade on three Ukrainian Black Sea ports.

Fidan said any plan excluding Moscow will “likely endanger security”.

We frankly believe that Russia should be brought back to the table again. We believe any solutions other than that will be far fetched.

The Foreign Minister claimed that the UN, who also brokered last year’s deal, were in agreement.

UPDATE 1021 GMT:

The latest Russian attacks have killed at least eight civilians in eastern and northern Ukraine.

Following Friday’s murder of two women and two children in the Donetsk region in eastern Ukraine, overnight Russian attacks slew at least four people, including a married couple, in New York.

Three other people were injured in the town, south of Bakhmut.

Two civilians were killed and one wounded by rocket fire on Kostiantynivka. The assaults destroyed 20 private homes, cars, and a gas pipeline.

In the Chernihiv region in northern Ukraine, two civilians were killed when cruise missiles destroyed the local cultural center and damaged apartment blocks.

UPDATE 0949 GMT:

Explosions are being reported at infrastructure in Russian-occupied Crimea, including an airfield, an oil depot, and a railway station.

The Russia proxy head in Crimea, Sergei Aksyonov, said ammunition was detonated in a depot in the Krasnogvardeisky district. People within 5 km (3.1 miles) were evacuated, and rail traffic was suspended.

UPDATE 0933 GMT:

The UN Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization has condemned Russia’s missile and drone attacks on Odesa in southern Ukraine.

The historic center of the port city is protected under the World Heritage Convention.

Russia attacked Odesa for four consecutive nights from early Tuesday to early Friday, hitting residential areas as well as destroying grain terminals and knocking out the port of Chornomorsk.

See also Ukraine War, Day 512: Russia’s “Terrorist Attacks” on Odesa and Mykolaiv

UNESCO said in a statement:

A preliminary assessment in Odesa has revealed damage to several museums inside the world heritage property, including the Odesa Archaeological Museum, the Odesa Maritime Museum, and the Odesa Literature Museum.

UPDATE 0642 GMT:

Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelenskiy has pointed to further attacks on the Kerch Bridge, Vladimir Putin’s flagship project linking Russia’s Krasnodar region with Russian-occupied Crimea.

The 17-km (10.6-mile) bridge was seriously damaged in last October by an explosion, and on Tuesday in an attack by Ukrainian naval drones.

Zelenskiy told the Aspen Security Forum by video link that the bridge is a military target.

This is the route used to feed the war with ammunition and this is being done on a daily basis. And it militarizes the Crimean peninsula.

For us, this is understandably an enemy facility built outside international laws and all applicable norms. So, understandably, this is a target for us. And a target that is bringing war, not peace, has to be neutralized.

ORIGINAL ENTRY: In an urgent session of the Security Council, the UN’s senior officials have criticized Russia’s withdrawal from the July 2022 deal ensuring grain exports from three of Ukraine’s Black Sea ports.

On Monday, Vladimir Putin shredded the agreement, brokered by the UN and Turkey, which lifted the Russian blockade. The arrangements had ensured the safe passage since August of almost 33 million metric tons of grain to 45 countries.

The head of the UN’s humanitarian operations, Martin Griffiths, noted the deliveries had brought down global grain prices by 23%. Now they are rising again.

For many of those 362 million people, it’s not a matter of sadness or disappointment, it’s a matter of a threat to their future and the future of their children and their families.

Some will go hungry, some will starve. Many may die as a result of these decisions.

Read A Summary of the Session

The UN political affairs chief, Rosemary DiCarlo, added, “The new wave of attacks on Ukrainian ports risks having far-reaching impacts on global food security, in particular, in developing countries.”

Significantly, the representative of African countries — who have refrained from condemning Russia’s invasion of Ukraine — joined the criticism.

Gabon’s Michel Biang said the grain deal had put out the spark igniting grain prices and calmed the risk of food insecurity in the drought-affected Horn of Africa and other regions. He urged talks “to break the current deadlock” and avoid a humanitarian crisis.

Mozambique’s Pedro Afonso went farther. He said Russia’s actions would “amplify global socio-economic stresses in a world already grappling with a perfect storm of conflict, climate change” and a loss of confidence in multilateral responses.

“Food Is Not A Weapon”

Russia’s Dmitry Polyansky made the unsupported claim that less than 3% of grain exports from Ukraine’s ports went to “the poorest [countries], specifically Ethiopia, Yemen, Afghanistan, Sudan and Somalia.

Others at the session knocked back the assertion. The US’s Linda Thomas-Greenfield noted UN provisions for Moscow to move its food and fertilizer.

Let’s be clear, Russia has zero legitimate reason to suspend its participation in this arrangement. They would have us believe that sanctions has blocked its exports….They were exporting more grains than ever before and at higher prices. It is using the Black Sea as blackmail.

France’s Nicolas de Rivière said Russia was “increasing its income to finance its war of aggression against Ukraine”, and the UK’s Barbara Woodward emphasized, “Food is not a weapon.”

Ukraine’s envoy pointed to its Moscow’s missile and drone attacks on ports, destroying terminals, reservoirs, and berths, and its threat to intercept and possibly attack ships in the Black Sea: “Russia’s intentions to consider foreign vessels as military targets…violates its obligations under international law.”

China’s Geng Shuang maintaied a neutral position, hoping that the Russia and the UN would cooperate to resume Ukrainian and Russian exports “at an early date” in the interest of “maintaining international food security and alleviating the food crisis in developing countries in particular”.

Russia’s Polyansky responded, “We stand ready to consider the possibility of rejoining,” but he demanded the lifting of a wide range of international financial and economic sanctions, maintaining that they were restricting Moscow’s grain and fertiliser exports.

In Kyiv, Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelensky conferred with Foreign Ministry and military staff over a set of measures to continue the operation of the grain corridor”.

Ukrainian officials have indicated that the exports could be moved through Romania and its Black Sea ports.

Zelenskiy said, “We are aware of the risks, threats, prospects.”