KYIV: Russia said a missile barrage for a historic grain export deal at a port central in Ukraine had destroyed Western-supplied weapons, shouted by Ukraine’s allies after the attack.
Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov, who was visiting several countries in Africa, sought to reassure Cairo that Russian grain supplies would continue at his first stop in Egypt on Sunday.
Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelensky denounced Saturday’s strike at the Odessa port as “Russian vandalism” and said it amounted to frustration after the warring sides reached an agreement to release exports from the facility.
“Even the occupiers believe that we will win. We hear it in their conversations – all the time, what they say when they approach their loved ones,” he said in his nightly address on Sunday.
Turkey helped Dalal with the deal and said soon after the double cruise missile hit that it had received assurances from Moscow that the Russian military was not responsible.
But Russia’s defense ministry on Sunday hit back at the denial, saying the attacks had destroyed a Ukrainian military vessel and weapons supplied by Washington.
“High-precision, sea-launched long-range missiles destroyed a docked Ukrainian warship and a stockpile of anti-ship missiles delivered by the United States to the Kyiv regime,” it said.
“A Ukrainian army repair and upgrade plant has also been taken out of order.”
The strikes have cast a shadow over the landmark agreement – which fell out of months of talks and was signed in Istanbul – to address a global food crisis.
UN chief Antonio Guterres, who presided over the signing ceremony on Friday, “unequivocally” condemned the attack. Meanwhile, the United States said it “casts grave doubts” on Russia’s commitment to the deal.
Western countries condemned Russia’s military attack on Ukraine after the attacks.
German President Frank-Walter Steinmeier called the invasion a war against the unity of Europe.
“We must not allow ourselves to be divided, we must not destroy the great work of a united Europe, which we have begun so promisingly,” he said in a speech on Sunday.
Grain prices in Africa – the world’s poorest continent where food supplies are severely tight – rose as exports declined.
Lavrov, who visited Uganda, Ethiopia and Congo-Brazzaville on tour, told his Egyptian counterpart Sameh Shouki that Russia would fulfill grain orders.
“We have reaffirmed the commitment of Russian exporters of grain products to fulfill their orders,” he said at a press conference.
Zelensky said the attack on Odessa shows that Moscow cannot be trusted to keep its promises.
Under a deal brokered by Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan and Guterres, Odessa is one of three designated export centres.
Ukrainian officials said grain was being stored in the port at the time of the strike, but food stocks were not affected.
There was no response from Moscow as of Sunday, but Turkish Defense Minister Hulusi Akar said Russia had previously denied carrying out the attack.
Huge quantities of wheat and other grain have been blocked by Russian warships in Ukraine’s ports and Kyiv mines have been laid to deter a possible amphibious attack.
Zelensky has said that about 20 million tonnes of produce from last year’s crop and the current crop will be exported under the agreement, estimating the value of Ukraine’s grain stock at around $10 billion.
Diplomats expect the grain to flow completely by mid-August.
Ukraine’s president said on Sunday that the deal in Istanbul brought some relief to the battlefield, where Russian forces were bombarding vast front lines over the weekend.
It said amid attacks in the industrial east and south, four Russian cruise missiles struck residential areas in the southern city of Mykolaiv on Saturday, wounding five people, including a teenager.
In a ravaged village near Ukraine’s southern border line, 49-year-old Stanislav, who joined Ukraine’s armed forces after the Russian invasion, said many were scared.
“But what can we do, we need to protect our homeland, because if I don’t do it my children will be forced to do it,” he said.
An official in the nearby Kherson region to the south said a Ukrainian counter-offensive for the territory occupied by Russia at the beginning of the offensive would be over by September.
“We can say that a turning point has come on the battlefield. We are turning from defensive to counterintelligence, ”said Sergei Khlan, an aide to the head of the Kherson region, in an interview with Ukrainian television.