In order to resume grain exports, three Ukrainian ports located on the Black Sea will start operating again. On the diplomatic level, Antony Blinken and Sergei Lavrov should meet in the coming days, according to the American Secretary of State. Franceinfo takes stock of what to remember from the latest developments in the war in Ukraine, Wednesday July 27.
Blinken announces phone interview with Lavrov
The head of the American diplomacy Antony Blinken announced that he would speak “in the next few days” with his Russian counterpart Sergei Lavrov, to discuss an American offer “consequent” to secure the release of two Americans detained in Russia.
This interview, the first since the Russian invasion of Ukraine at the end of February, “will not be a negotiation about Ukraine” but should be mainly devoted to the detention in Russia of basketball player Brittney Griner and ex-soldier Paul Whelan, “who were wrongly arrested and who should be allowed to return home”said the US Secretary of State during a press conference.
Moscow has not received a request from Washington for telephone contact between Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov and US Secretary of State Anthony Blinken, the Russian Foreign Ministry said, quoted by the Russian agency Tass.
Cereals: three Ukrainian ports are working again
The three Ukrainian ports designated for grain exports, in Odessa, Chornomorsk and Yuzhny, resumed operation on Wednesday. The Ukrainian government expects the first shipments to be able to leave “from this week” the Black Sea ports where they had been blockaded since the start of the Russian invasion on February 24.
Again in application of the agreements signed for four months on July 22 in Istanbul, the Joint Coordination Center (CCC) in charge of controlling the transport via the Black Sea of Ukrainian grain was officially inaugurated the same day in this Turkish metropolis.
Minimum service for Nord Stream 1
Another consequence of the Russian offensive, the Nord Stream 1 gas pipeline between Russia and Germany is now only in service, as planned, at around a fifth of its capacity, reinforcing the risks of shortages this winter. in Europe.
In the context of the energy standoff between Moscow and the West since the start of the conflict, the arrival of gas from Russia in Germany was on Wednesday some 14.4 gigawatt hours (GWh), against nearly 29 GWh on average these last few days, lamented the German operator Gascade, which manages the network on German territory.
A partially out of order bridge near Kherson
Spanning the Dnieper in the suburbs of Kherson, the Antonovski bridge, key for supplies, was partially disabled on Wednesday by a Ukrainian attack. This book “is badly damaged” and “the Russians don’t have the specialists and the equipment to fix it in the short term”commented the deputy head of the regional council, Yuri Sobolevsky, saying that “the bridge cannot be used to cross heavy military equipment”.
Kherson is located a few kilometers from the southern front where the Ukrainian forces launched a counter-offensive in order to reconquer these territories lost in the first days of the Russian assault on Ukraine.
Essential for Ukrainian agriculture, the region is also strategic because it borders the Crimean peninsula, annexed by Moscow in 2014. In eastern Ukraine, the Donbass mining basin was the scene of intense fighting. Two people were killed and five injured in the bombardment of a hotel in Bakhmout, announced the Ukrainian emergency services.