Ukraine grain freed up under UN deal; White House announces new aid package: Updates
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Amid a rising world meals disaster, Russia and Ukraine signed separate agreements Friday with Turkey and the United Nations to permit Russia to export grain and fertilizer, officers mentioned.
U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres has been attempting to free up Ukrainian grain that has been caught in Black Sea ports for months. The Russian blockage of hundreds of thousands of tons of grain has led to meals shortages in Africa and Asia.
“Today, there is a beacon on the Black Sea,” Guterres said Friday. “A beacon of hope, a beacon of risk, a beacon of reduction in a world that wants it greater than ever.”
Ukraine is one of the world’s largest exporters of wheat, corn and sunflower oil. At least 22 million tons of grain are stuck there due to the war.
The deals were signed by Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu, Ukrainian Infrastructure Minister Oleksandr Kubrakov, Turkish Defense Minister Hulusi Akar and Guterres.
“You have overcome obstacles and put apart variations to pave the best way for an initiative that may serve the widespread pursuits of all,” Guterres said to Russian and Ukrainian representatives.
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Latest developments:
►Emergency workers recovered three bodies from a school destroyed by a Russian strike in the eastern Ukrainian city of Kramatorsk, officials said Friday. The shelling also damaged 85 residential buildings, according to President Volodymyr Zelenskyy’s office.
►Pro-Russian separatists in japanese Ukraine mentioned Friday they blocked Google within the self-proclaimed Donetsk People’s Republic, separatist leader Denis Pushilin posted to Telegram. Pushilin’s Telegram put up claims Google is stuffed with anti-Russian propaganda.
►A bipartisan group of senators introduced a resolution that recognizes Russia’s actions in Ukraine as genocide. The measure, introduced by Idaho Republican Sen. Jim Risch, says the Kremlin has committed “heinous crimes in opposition to humanity.”
►Ukrainian excessive jumper Yaroslava Mahuchikh, 20, won a silver medal on the world championships after clearing 2.02 meters. The win comes shortly after Mahuchikh’s escape from her hometown of Dnipro after it got here under Russian assault.
White House announces new $270M aid package
The United States is sending another $270 million in security assistance to Ukraine, White House spokesman John Kirby said Friday. The latest package includes Phoenix Ghost drones, medium range rocket systems as well as ammunition and anti-armor systems.
More help will likely be announced “in the not-too distant future,” Kirby said.
The latest aid installment announced by the White House Friday comes on top of about $8 billion in security assistance provided since the war began in late February. It is being paid for through $40 billion in economic and security assistance for Ukraine Congress approved in May.
The Defense Department is also exploring providing U.S. fighter jets to Ukraine. But even if that happens, it won’t be anytime soon, Kirby said, because of the complexities of integrating and operating advanced fighter jets.
Kirby said the United States is hopeful that agreements Russia and Ukraine reached Friday with Turkey and the United Nations on grain and fertilizer will alleviate a global food crisis. But a lot will depend on how the agreements are implemented, he added, and “the degree to which the Russians actually meet their end of the bargain here.”
– Maureen Groppe
UK intelligence service chief calls Russian invasion an ‘epic fail’
The chief of the United Kingdom’s intelligence service called Russia’s invasion of Ukraine an “epic fail,” adding that the country appears to be “about to expire of steam.”
Russian forces have probably misplaced about 15,000 troops, mentioned Richard Moore, the chief of the Secret Intelligence Service, additionally identified a MI6, throughout this week’s Aspen Security Forum in Colorado. He known as the quantity a “conservative estimate” and said that is roughly the same number of troops Russia lost in 10 years during its war in Afghanistan.
Moore acknowledged Russian forces had made progress in recent weeks but called it incremental. He said Russia “has suffered a strategic failure in Ukraine” and will face difficulties in manpower and materials in the next few weeks.
“They must pause indirectly and that may give the Ukrainians alternatives to strike again,” he said, adding that Ukrainian morale is still high and they’re receiving powerful weapons from other countries.
Russia also underestimated Ukrainian resistance, Moore said.
“They clearly utterly misunderstood Ukrainian nationalism,” he said. “They utterly underrated the diploma of resistance the Russian army would face.”
US may send fighter jets to Ukraine, top military official says
Gen. Charles Brown, Air Force chief of staff, says the United States and its allies are considering providing Ukraine with fighter jets, a decision that would sharply escalate the level of weaponry being sent to Kyiv.
President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has pleaded for fighter jets for months, saying Russia’s air supremacy has been a major stumbling block in his country’s efforts to repel the invasion. In March, the U.S. and NATO scuttled Poland’s proposal to send its Russian-built MiGs to Ukraine, with White House national security spokesman John Kirby saying at the time the proposal might be “mistaken as escalatory.”
Brown said Wednesday in an interview at the Aspen Security Forum that Russian MiGs won’t be sent to Ukraine, saying with a laugh that it will “be harder to get components” from the Russians.
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