UN chief calls for grain deal to be renewed for global ‘food security’
The UN secretary general has urged Russia and Ukraine to renew the deal that has seen more than 8m tonnes of grain exported from Ukraine and brought down global food prices.
Antonio Guterres also called for other countries, mainly in the west, to expedite the removal of obstacles blocking Russian grain and fertiliser exports, Agence France-Presse reported.
The UN chief’s spokesman said on Friday that Guterres underlined the urgency of renewing the deal so as “to contribute to food security across the world”.
The agreement between Ukraine and Russia – major suppliers of grain around the globe – was brokered by the UN and Turkey in July and is due to expire on 19 November.
Russia’s UN ambassador said on Wednesday that before Moscow discussed a renewal, “Russia needs to see the export of its grain and fertilisers in the world market, which has never happened since the beginning of the deal”.
He said the hurdles facing Russia’s exports include getting insurance for vessels, conducting financial transactions, finding ports of call for Russian ships, and freeing up fertiliser on ships detained at European ports.
Guterres has said the resumption of Ukrainian grain exports from three Black Sea ports “has significantly contributed to lower prices of wheat and other commodities”.
Key events
More than 10,000 people filled the Czech capital’s central Wenceslas Square on Friday, with demonstrators calling for the government to resign as consumers face sharply rising prices.
Dubbed Czech Republic First, the protest was the third of its kind organised by a group calling for the nation’s exit from NATO and renewed ties with Moscow.
Nationalist activists have blasted the EU’s sanctions against Moscow as the source of the region’s turmoil, and called for talks with the Kremlin to secure fresh supplies of cheaper natural gas.
On social media, organisers attacked the government’s support for some 400,000 Ukrainian refugees in the country and called on authorities to prevent them from permanently settling in the Czech Republic.
The Interior Ministry described a similar protest that drew 70,000 in September as promoting “pro-Kremlin propagandist narratives.”
PRAGUE, CZECH REPUBLIC – OCTOBER 28: Demonstrators gather in the Wenceslas Square to stage an anti-government protest demanding the centre-right government step down to allow an early election in Prague, Czech Republic on October 28, 2022. Thousands of people took part in the protest which also called for an alleviation of the energy crisis. (Photo by Lukas Kabon/Anadolu Agency via Getty Images) Photograph: Anadolu Agency/Getty Images
Russians stealing medical equipment in Kherson, says Ukraine’s president, Volodymyr Zelenskiy.
Russian forces in the occupied region of Kherson are engaged in mass theft of medical equipment and ambulances in a bid to make the area uninhabitable, Zelenskiy said on Friday evening.
Kherson is one of the four regions Moscow claimed as part of Russia.
“The occupiers have decided to close down medical institutions in towns, take away medical equipment, ambulances, everything. They are putting pressure on doctors who still remain … to move to the territory of Russia,” Zelenskiy said.
“Russia is trying to make the Kherson region a no man’s land,” he added, in an evening video address.
Ukrainian officials have regularly accused retreating Russian troops of widespread looting.
Russia says US lowering “nuclear threshold” with newer bombs in Europe, Reuters reports.
Russia said on Saturday that the accelerated deployment of modernised US B61 tactical nuclear weapons at Nato bases in Europe would lower the “nuclear threshold” and that Russia would take the move into account in its military planning.
Earlier this week, Politico reported that the US told a closed Nato meeting this month that it would accelerate the deployment of a modernised version of the B61, the B61-12, with the new weapons arriving at European bases in December.
“We cannot ignore the plans to modernise nuclear weapons, those free-fall bombs that are in Europe,” Russia’s deputy foreign minister, Alexander Grushko, told state RIA news agency.
“The United States is modernising them, increasing their accuracy and reducing the power of the nuclear charge, that is, they turn these weapons into ‘battlefield weapons’, thereby reducing the nuclear threshold,” Grushko said.
Moscow-installed governor of Sevastopol, Mikhail Razvozhaev, has asked residents not to post videos of a drone attack on the city to social media.
“It should be clear to everyone that such information is much needed for Ukrainian Nazis in order to understand how the defence of our city is built,” he said.
Earlier today, the official, appointed by Russia, said that Russian naval forces had repelled a drone attack in waters off the port city of Sevastopol.
No “civilian infrastructure” was damaged, according to Razvozhaev on Telegram. The Guardian could not verify battlefield accounts.
Ukraine’s president, Volodymyr Zelenskiy, gave a live, virtual address to the Yale School of Management on Friday.
Today, posting on Telegram about the conversation, he wrote: “It is important for the whole world that Russia loses now – in the war in Ukraine. When we will gain a victory for ourselves, we will also gain a victory for other nations whose freedom is potentially at risk.
“Right now, and precisely in Ukraine, it is being decided whether our part of the world will be free and democratic. Ultimately, this is how the global fate of democracy will be determined. This fate should be determined by us – the free world, not terrorists. I believe that it will be so.”
Speaking during a meeting with President Vladimir Putin, Russia’s defence minister, Sergei Shoigu, said 82,000 conscripts had already been sent to Ukraine.
Shoigu added that Russia was no longer recruiting people for its armed forces, saying that “citizen notification has been discontinued”.
Putin thanked his defence minister, acknowledging that there had been some problems at the start of the recruitment drive. “This was probably inevitable,” he said, “bearing in mind that such events have not been held in our country for a long time.”
Watch the video here:
Ukraine said Russian forces have launched four rockets, up to 25 airstrikes and more than 70 attacks from rocket salvo systems which hit areas of more than 35 settlements over the past day.
In the Beryslav settlement of the Kherson oblast, Ukrainian authorities said “the occupiers are en masse changing into civilian clothes and moving into private residences”.
The update on Saturday also said the “so-called ‘evacuation’” from the occupied territory in Kherson includes medical facilities. “All equipment and medicines are taken out of Kherson hospitals. Doctors who refuse to leave are not allowed to enter hospital grounds, even for personal belongings.”
The remains of an 18th century Russian statesman have been removed from his tomb in Kherson, according to the latest UK intelligence update.
The update on Saturday morning said the symbolic removal of Prince Grigory Potemkin’s remains from the cathedral to the east of Dnipro, signals plans from Putin to “expedite withdrawal” from the region.
More than 70,000 people have now left Kherson city, according to the Russian-appointed governor of the region, Vladimir Saldo.
Here are the latest photos coming out of Ukraine and elsewhere:
Russian naval forces repelled a drone attack in the Bay of Sevastopol, where the Black Sea Fleet is headquartered, according to Reuters.
The Russian-appointed governor of Sevastopol, Mikhail Razvozhaev, said on Telegram:
Ships of the Black Sea Fleet repelled a drone attack in the waters of the Sevastopol Bay. Nothing has been hit in the city. We remain calm. The situation is under control.
Sevastopol is the largest city in Crimea, which Russia annexed from Ukraine in 2014.
Canada has announced fresh sanctions against 35 individuals and six companies in Russia’s energy sector, as a well as a bond issue to support Ukraine.
Those individuals named on Friday include National Hockey League player Alexander Frolov and chess grandmaster Anton Demchenko, Agence France-Presse reports.
Ukraine has repeatedly urged its allies in the west to extend its sanctions to high-profile personalities who have publicly backed Russia’s invasion.
Civilian evacuation of Kherson finished, say Russia’s proxies
Russian-backed forces say they have finished a pull-out of civilians from the key southern Ukrainian city of Kherson.
Kyiv’s forces are now closing in on the city after making major gains in Ukraine’s east and south, Agence France-Presse reports.
The city had a population of about 288,000 people before the war and was one of the first to fall to Moscow’s troops after the February invasion.
Since mid-October, the occupying authorities have urged Kherson residents to cross the Dnipro River, going deeper into Moscow-controlled territory and closer to regions of southern Russia.
A Russian-installed official in Kherson, Vladimir Saldo, has said at least 70,000 people had left their homes in the region in the space of a week.
Kyiv has compared the operation to Soviet-era “deportations”.
Russia has declared Natayia Sindeyeva, the head of the independent TV channel Dozhd, a “foreign agent” along with two journalist colleagues, in the latest crackdown on civil society.
Agence France-Press reported that the names of Natalia Sindeeva, Vladimir Romensky and Ekaterina Kotrikadze appeared on the latest Russian justice ministry list of “foreign agents”.
They had been added because of their “political activities”, the ministry said.
TV Dozhd was launched in 2008 and covered Russia’s opposition and protest movements, and last year the channel itself was labelled a “foreign agent”.
All main independent media outlets in Russia, including radio station Echo of Moscow and Dozhd TV, have been shut down or have suspended their operations in the country.
Dozhd wound up its Russia operations and suspended broadcasting from Russia with an emotional show on 3 March, less than a fortnight after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
The channel resumed broadcasting in 18 July from studios in neighbouring Latvia.
UN chief calls for grain deal to be renewed for global ‘food security’
The UN secretary general has urged Russia and Ukraine to renew the deal that has seen more than 8m tonnes of grain exported from Ukraine and brought down global food prices.
Antonio Guterres also called for other countries, mainly in the west, to expedite the removal of obstacles blocking Russian grain and fertiliser exports, Agence France-Presse reported.
The UN chief’s spokesman said on Friday that Guterres underlined the urgency of renewing the deal so as “to contribute to food security across the world”.
The agreement between Ukraine and Russia – major suppliers of grain around the globe – was brokered by the UN and Turkey in July and is due to expire on 19 November.
Russia’s UN ambassador said on Wednesday that before Moscow discussed a renewal, “Russia needs to see the export of its grain and fertilisers in the world market, which has never happened since the beginning of the deal”.
He said the hurdles facing Russia’s exports include getting insurance for vessels, conducting financial transactions, finding ports of call for Russian ships, and freeing up fertiliser on ships detained at European ports.
Guterres has said the resumption of Ukrainian grain exports from three Black Sea ports “has significantly contributed to lower prices of wheat and other commodities”.
Summary
Hello and welcome back to the Guardian’s ongoing live coverage of the war in Ukraine. It is approaching 9.30am in Kyiv. Here’s a brief rundown on the latest developments.
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Russia’s defence minister, Sergei Shoigu, has said the partial mobilisation of reservists announced in September “has been completed” and “no further measures are planned”. Speaking at a meeting with Vladimir Putin broadcast on state television, Shoigu said 82,000 mobilised recruits were in the conflict zone and a further 218,000 in training in barracks. His statement reflects what the west called a desperate effort to halt Kyiv’s counteroffensive with poorly trained troops.
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About 4 million people across Ukraine are being hit by power cuts from rolling blackouts due to Russia’s bombing campaign, Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelenskiy has said. Agence Frence-Presse quoted energy company DTEK, the operator for the Kyiv region, as saying it would have to introduce “unprecedented” power cuts to prevent a complete blackout.
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Ukraine’s foreign minister, Dmytro Kuleba, said he had received a phone call from his Iranian counterpart, Hossein Amir-Abdollahian, on Friday and had demanded Tehran stop sending weapons to Russia. Ukraine and western allies accuse Iran of sending “kamikaze” drones to Russia that have been used to devastating effect against Ukrainian infrastructure. Iran denies the charge.
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At least four people were killed and 10 wounded when several towns neighbouring the Russian-occupied Zaporizhzhia power plant were hit by shelling, a statement from the Ukrainian presidential office said.
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The Russian defence ministry said its forces had repelled attempted Ukrainian advances in the east and had destroyed a Ukrainian military factory near the town of Pavlograd.
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The US will provide $275m in additional military assistance to Ukraine, including arms, munitions and equipment from US defence department inventories, the secretary of state has said. “We are also working to provide Ukraine with the air defence capabilities it needs with the two initial US-provided Nasams ready for delivery to Ukraine next month,” Antony Blinken said. “And we are working with allies and partners to enable delivery of their own air defence systems to Ukraine.”
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Assets belonging to Russian and Belarusian individuals seized by Ukraine could be used for the huge postwar reconstruction effort, the Ukrainian finance minister, Serhiy Marchenko, has been quoted as saying. The government has frozen Russian and Belarusian assets in Ukraine worth about 44 billion hryvnias ($1.21bn) since the start of Moscow’s invasion, according to the Economic Security Bureau, a state agency.
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The European Union has appointed a Polish general, Piotr Trytek, to lead a new training operation with Ukrainian troops. Trytek, 51, was chosen as part of the EU’s pledge to step up military support for Ukraine.
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Vladimir Putin’s first deputy chief of staff has visited the Russian-held Ukrainian city of Kherson. Sergei Kiriyenko stopped at a ferry port where hundreds of people were being removed by order of Russian authorities.
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A Russian official’s threat to strike western satellites aiding Ukraine has raised concerns among space lawyers and industry executives about the safety of objects in orbit. No country has carried out a missile strike against an enemy’s satellite.
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UN nuclear inspectors are expected to reach a conclusion soon on Russia’s claims of the possible production of a “dirty bomb”. Investigators are being sent to two locations in Ukraine where Russia alleged the activities were taking place.
