Russia will sign Friday with Ukraine an agreement on grain exports eagerly awaited by the international community in the face of the risk of famine in the world.
An exit by the Black Sea of Ukrainian wheat blocked by the war and an easing of the obstacles to the transport of Russian grains and fertilizers will become possible after the agreement is initialed in Istanbul, Turkey announced Thursday, day when deliveries of Russian gas to Europe partially resumed.
Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan and UN Secretary-General António Guterres, along with representatives of the two belligerents, will participate in the signing ceremony which will take place at 1.30 p.m. GMT (9.30 a.m. Eastern Time). East) at Dolmabahçe Palace.
“We welcome the announcement of this agreement in principle, but what matters to us now is […] to allow Ukrainian cereals to reach world markets”, commented the American diplomacy.
“The Ukrainian delegation will only support solutions that guarantee the security of the southern regions of Ukraine, a strong position of the Ukrainian armed forces in the Black Sea and the safe export of Ukrainian agricultural products,” the spokesperson also cautiously reacted. of the Ukrainian Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Oleg Nikolenko.
Bombing in Kharkiv
At the same time, a new Russian bombardment on Thursday left 3 dead and 23 injured, including 4 seriously, in Kharkiv, a city in northeastern Ukraine pounded for weeks, announced the regional governor, Oleg Synegoubov .
The head of Russian diplomacy, Sergei Lavrov, had meanwhile affirmed the day before that Moscow’s objectives were no longer limited solely to eastern Ukraine, but also concerned “other territories” and could still be extend.
Russian soldiers have advanced in the past few weeks in the mining basin, including breaking the double lock of Severodonetsk and Lysychansk, two cities in the Luhansk region, which cleared the way for them to try to progress further to the west in the Donetsk region.
kyiv said on Thursday that the Russians were storing heavy weapons and ammunition “in the immediate vicinity” of critical installations on the site of the Zaporizhia nuclear power plant – the largest in Europe -, occupied since March, alarming itself of risk of accidental explosion and fire.
Moscow for its part mentioned raids by Ukrainian drones on Monday, “a few tens of meters from structures vital to the security of the plant”, then again on Wednesday.
Human Rights Watch has accused both Russian and Ukrainian soldiers of “unnecessarily” endangering civilians by placing troops in the heart of populated areas.
The war in Ukraine must end to avoid a “nuclear” conflict, judged, in an exclusive interview with AFP, the Belarusian president, while considering that it was up to kyiv and the West to give in to the Kremlin.
Russian gas… sparingly
Russia on Thursday restarted the Nord Stream gas pipeline, which directly connects Siberian gas fields to northern Germany, after a ten-day shutdown for maintenance work, according to Moscow.
However, it only operates at 40% of its capacity, as before the maintenance, lamented the German network operator, Gascade.
“Nothing technically prevented Nord Stream from returning to full-scale operation after its maintenance,” enraged the German Minister for the Economy and Climate, Robert Habeck, for whom “Russia is proving to be increasingly be a factor of uncertainty in the energy system”.
In the context of the war in Ukraine, Russian President Vladimir Putin is using gas as “a weapon”, the President of the European Commission, Ursula von der Leyen, had pointed out the day before.
Suspicions of “blackmail” brushed aside Thursday by the spokesperson for the Russian presidency, Dmitry Peskov, for whom “it is these restrictions [imposées par les Occidentaux, ndlr] which prevent repairs to equipment, in particular turbines at compressor stations”.
Ukraine, whose economy has collapsed since the beginning of the Russian invasion, announced on the same day the devaluation of 25% of its national currency, the hryvnia, against the dollar.
“Such a measure will strengthen the competitiveness of Ukrainian producers” and “will support the stability of the economy in wartime conditions,” the central bank said in a statement.