July 18, 2023 Russia-Ukraine news

Our live coverage of Russia’s war in Ukraine has moved here.

A CNN team in Odesa witnessed a sustained barrage of air defense towards the southwest of the city, in the direction of the port.

Russia launched an attack on Odesa early Wednesday, the second night in a row the southern port city has been targeted.

Ukraine’s air defenses were repelling a Russian attack, a spokesperson for Ukraine’s Odesa military administration said.

A CNN team in Odesa witnessed a sustained barrage from the air defense near the direction of the port. The team also heard at least three large bangs.

Oleh Kiper, head of the Odesa region’s military administration, urged people not to come close to windows.

Russian forces launched airstrikes on Odesa on Tuesday in retaliation for Kyiv’s attack Monday on the strategic and symbolic Crimean bridge linking the annexed peninsula to the Russian mainland.

Russia would be prepared to return to the critical Black Sea Grain Initiative if Moscow’s demands are met by international partners, according to remarks made by Russia’s permanent representative at the United Nations headquarters.

Gennady Gatilov’s comments come after the Kremlin said Monday that it is allowing a deal struck to allow the export of Ukrainian grain to expire. 

Here’s what else you should know:

Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis is interviewed by CNN's Jake Tapper on Tuesday, July 18, in South Carolina. 

Gov. Ron DeSantis downplayed the conflict in Ukraine in an exclusive interview with CNN’s Jake Tapper on Tuesday.

Some Republicans have grilled the Republican presidential candidate over his dismissal of Russia’s aggression in Ukraine as a “territorial dispute” not of “vital” national interest. During the interview, DeSantis doubled down, calling the war a “secondary or tertiary interest,” though he said he would be “willing to be helpful to bring it to a conclusion.”

Asked if he would stop arming Ukraine or sending financial support, DeSantis wouldn’t say. Instead, he advocated for turning the focus of the US military away from Europe and toward Asia and China.

“I am not gonna diminish our stocks and not send (them) to Taiwan. I’m not gonna make us less capable to respond to exigencies,” DeSantis told Tapper, calling the island’s future a “significant interest.”

Gennady Gatilov gives a press conference in Geneva, on April 26.

Russia would be prepared to return to the Black Sea grain deal if Moscow’s demands are met by international partners, according to Russia’s permanent representative at the United Nations headquarters, Gennady Gatilov.

In remarks published on the Russian Foreign Ministry Telegram channel Tuesday in response to a question from Reuters, Gatilov accused the deal of deviating away from its “intended humanitarian purposes.”

Gatilov did say the UN “tried on its part to urge the Western governments and business structures to implement the Russian-UN Memorandum.”

“However, despite the efforts, the leadership of the UN Secretariat could not overcome the resistance of the Western countries and private companies, on which depended the fulfillment of our demands,” he said.

Gatilov also claimed that Ukraine “repeatedly used the Black Sea humanitarian route for provocations and attacks against Russian civilian and military vessels, as well as infrastructure.”

Two civilians have been killed and seven injured by Ukrainian shelling on Tuesday in different parts of separatist-controlled areas of the Donetsk region, a local official said.

“Two people have been killed today as a result of shelling by Ukrainian armed formations - [one each] in the Kirovskiy district of Donetsk and Vladymirovka in Volnovakha,” the head of the self-proclaimed Donetsk People’s Republic (DPR), Denis Pushilin, said in a Telegram message. 

“Another seven people were wounded in Donetsk, Makiivka and Staromikhailivka, including a 17-year-old boy,” the post added.

Several homes, two schools and a hospital were damaged by the shelling, he said. 

“The [DPR] Republic was shelled 93 times, with more than 490 MLRS rockets, including Turkish-made rockets, being fired, including 152mm and 155mm caliber artillery shells,” Pushilin added. 

Volodymyr Zelensky during a news conference on the closing day of the annual NATO Summit in Vilnius, Lithuania, on July 12.

Ukraine’s president is warning that Russia’s withdrawal from the Black Sea grain deal will result in more crises around the world.

“Last year, thanks to our Black Sea Grain Initiative, we managed to prevent a price crisis in the global food market. A price explosion would inevitably have been followed by political and migration crises, particularly in African and Asian countries,” President Volodymyr Zelensky said Tuesday in his evening address.

He said a wide range of countries will feel the effects and that Ukraine is “working without partners to prevent this.” Russia pulled out of the deal on Monday.

Ukraine is developing options for action and agreements “to preserve Ukraine’s global role as a guarantor of food security, our maritime access to the global market, and jobs for Ukrainians in ports and the agricultural industry,” he said, adding Kyiv is “fighting for global security and for our Ukrainian farmers.”

Russia’s decision to pull out of the Black Sea grain deal was “very deplorable,” as it will increase food insecurity around the world, Finland’s Foreign Minister Elina Valtonen told CNN’s Bianna Golodryga on Tuesday. 

“We just have to find alternative ways to get the grain out of Ukraine and onto the markets to those people most in need,” she said.

As for her country’s recent membership in NATO, Valtonen said it “was a decision that had to be made finally.” Finland decided to join the Western alliance following the invasion of Ukraine last year.

As for allowing Ukraine to join, Valtonen said any decision must await the end of hostilities.

The latest meeting of the Ukraine Contact Group — informally known as the Ramstein meeting — demonstrated the allies’ “unwavering support for Ukraine,” Ukrainian Defense Minister Oleksii Reznikov tweeted on Tuesday.

Priority was placed on the supply of weapons and equipment Ukraine “urgently” needs to continue liberating occupied territory, he said.

Reznikov thanked Luxembourg and Estonia for their proposals on IT and Lithuania for their demining coalition initiative. He also thanked US Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin for leading “an unprecedented coalition against evil.”

“Together, we are working hard to achieve victory, a just peace and a better future,” he concluded.

Some background: The US and Europe are struggling to provide Ukraine with the large amount of ammunition it will need for a prolonged counteroffensive against Russia, and Western officials are racing to ramp up production to avoid shortages on the battlefield that could hinder Ukraine’s progress.

The dwindling supply of artillery ammunition has served as a wake-up call to NATO, US and Western officials told CNN, since the alliance did not adequately prepare for the possibility of a protracted land war in Europe following decades of relative peace.

A section of the Kerch Bridge damaged by an apparent strike by Ukrainian forces on Monday.

Ferry crossings across the Kerch Strait, which separates Crimea from Russia, have been suspended, the Main Directorate of the Ministry of Emergency Situations of Russia in the Republic of Crimea announced on Tuesday.

The announcement follows an apparent strike Monday by Ukrainian forces on the bridge, which damaged the road.

In addition to ferry crossings being suspended, there are severe traffic delays on the bridge that connects the Russian mainland to the annexed Crimean Peninsula and which is an important supply line for Russian forces.

Deputy Defense Minister Hanna Maliar says Ukraine is creating conditions to continue advancing along the southern front.

“Remember the liberation of Kherson — it also took more than one day,” she added.

Her comments were supported by the Commander of the Tavria Joint Forces Operation, Brigadier General Oleksandr Tarnavskyi, who said Ukraine was making gains along the southern front.

“Fighting continues in the Tavria sector, with the Ukrainian Defence Forces gaining ground in some areas and the enemy retreating,” he wrote in Telegram.

“Over the last day, the enemy’s losses in killed and wounded amounted to more than three companies. 41 units of enemy military equipment were destroyed,” he added. “Four enemy ammunition depots were also destroyed.”

Ukraine also claimed gains in the east, around Bakhmut, and said it had stopped Russia’s push near Kupyansk.

“The enemy’s offensive in the Kupyansk sector is currently unsuccessful. Fighting continues, but the initiative is already on our side,” Maliar said in a Telegram post on Tuesday. “On the southern flank around Bakhmut today, as in all previous days, there was an advance of our troops.”

From right, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Gen. Mark Milley, US Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin and Assistant Secretary of Defense Celeste Wallander meet virtually with the Ukraine Defense Contact Group at the Pentagon in Arlington, Virginia, on July 18.

The Ukrainian counteroffensive is “far from a failure” despite moving slower than anticipated, the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Gen. Mark Milley said Tuesday.

“It is far from a failure,” he added. “In my view, I think that it’s way too early to make that kind of call. I think there’s a lot of fighting left to go.”

Milley also said that Ukraine has a “significant amount of combat power not yet committed” to the counteroffensive.

“I will not say what’s going to happen in the future, because that’s going to be a Ukrainian decision as to where and when they commit their reserve, etc,” he said. “Right now they are preserving their combat power, and they are slowly and deliberately and steadily working their way through all these minefields.”

Ukrainian soldiers unload ammunition from a truck near Bakhmut, Ukraine, in April.

US Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin said Tuesday that the Ukraine Defense Contact Group, which met virtually Tuesday, discussed Ukraine’s “urgent need for ammunition.”

Some context: CNN reported Tuesday that the US and Europe are struggling to keep up with Ukraine’s ammunition needs as they battle Russian forces.

Grain is loaded onto a ship at the Chornomorsk port in Ukraine’s Odesa region in March.

Current land alternatives were not able to compensate for the loss of the Black Sea route after Russia decided to terminate the grain deal, Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba said.

Ukraine could not simply accept the deal was over, he added, vowing to work to try and find a solution.

“We have to find an alternative and there are very active discussions now … but the key message is a way out requires political will,” he said. “This is not an easy situation. We have to take risks and we have to demonstrate that we can carry on without Russia.”

“Every option is on the table now,” he added. 

There are alternative routes for Ukrainian grain and oilseed exports by rail through eastern Europe, but they can’t readily cope with the volume that Ukraine wants to export.

Russia’s attempt to secure concessions for its own exports by blocking the deal is “blackmail” that should “not be tolerated,” the minister also said. “Instead of playing this game, Russia should simply play in good faith and implement in good faith Black Sea Grain Initiative.”

Water flows over the collapsed Nova Kakhovka dam on June 7.

The Ukrainian government approved on Tuesday a plan for the reconstruction of the Kakhovka Hydro Power Plant (HPP), which was destroyed in June, the government announced in a statement. 

The restoration of irrigation systems in southern Ukraine is important for the country’s agriculture and the Kakhovka HPP will continue to play a key role, Prime Minister Denys Shmyhal said during a meeting with the Cabinet of Ministers. 

The project will be coordinated by Ukraine’s Ministry of Economy and the client will be the state-owned company Ukrhydroenergo, he said. The decision to prepare for the restoration was made after consultations with experts, Shmyhal said. 

The rebuilding of the Kakhovka plant will be beneficial for both the agricultural and energy sectors, he added. 

Some more context: On June 6, the dam, which powers the plant located in Kherson region, collapsed, unleashing widespread devastation and an ecological catastrophe. More than 100 people have died, according to Ukrainian officials. 

What caused the collapse is yet to be established – whether it was targeted as part of Russia’s war in Ukraine, or whether it was a structural failure. Ukraine is blaming Russia for blowing up the dam. 

Ukrainian officials, including President Volodymyr Zelensky, have accused Russia of committing “ecocide” by blowing up the dam. Environmental experts have called on the international community to get large-scale environmental destruction recognized as an international crime, prosecutable at the International Criminal Court (ICC).

France's President Emmanuel Macron talks to journalists at the European Council Building in Brussels, Belgium, on July 18.

French President Emmanuel Macron said that Russian leader Vladimir Putin made a “huge mistake” with his decision to “weaponize” food by pulling out of the critical Black Sea grain deal.  

Speaking to reporters at the Council of the European Union in Brussels on Tuesday, Macron said Russia assumed “a huge responsibility” towards numerous countries by participating in the UN-brokered grain deal.  

“Middle Eastern, African, even Asian countries are very much dependent on these agreements, which will be impacted by the unilateral decision of Russia,” Macron said.  

Macron stressed that France’s “responsibility” is to “facilitate” the export of grains, cereals, and fertilizers, as part of the farm initiative it launched last year to support countries grappling with food security issues.  

France initially responded to the news of Russia’s decision to exit the grain deal, accusing Putin of “blackmailing global food security.”  

In a statement Monday, the French foreign ministry called Russia “solely responsible” for blocking shipping in the Black Sea.  

More about the deal’s impact on global food security: The deal proved vital for stabilizing global food prices and bringing relief to the developing countries which rely on Ukrainian exports. The impact of the war on global food markets was immediate and extremely painful, especially because Ukraine is a major supplier of grain to the World Food Programme (WFP).

According to the European Commission, Ukraine accounts for 10% of the world wheat market, 15% of the corn market, and 13% of the barley market. It is also a key global player in the market of sunflower oil. The Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), an UN body, warned at the time that as many as 47 million people could be pushed into “acute food insecurity” because of the war.

CNN’s Rob Picheta, Mick Krever and Anna Chernov contributed reporting to this post.

Members of the Grom special forces unit under Russia's Interior Ministry take part in a drill near Moscow, Russia, on November 29, 2019.

Russian President Vladimir Putin transferred the Grom special forces unit of the Ministry of Internal Affairs to the jurisdiction of the Russian National Guard (or Rosgvardiya), which will allow it to be deployed to the front lines in Ukraine, said Alexander Khinshtein, a member of the Russian Parliament from Putin’s United Russia party. 

“It emphasizes the key role of the National Guard in protecting the internal security of the country,” Khinshtein also said. 

Why this matters: Khinshtein indicated that while the Grom unit was unable to take part in the fight in Ukraine because it was part of the Ministry of Internal Affairs, its transfer to the Russian National Guard changes that, giving Moscow another 7,000 men it can redeploy. 

“In the conditions of the special military operation, when special rapid-response squad and [the National Guard’s] OMON (Special Purposes Mobile Unit) are directly involved in the fight right on the front line - all this was fraught with serious problems and certainly did not bring victory closer,” he said.

The move comes just weeks after Putin met with the leadership and personnel of the Ministry of Defense, the Russian National Guard, the FSB and the Ministry of Internal Affairs, following an attempted coup by the Wagner private military group.

The hold of the UN-chartered vessel MV Valsamitis is loaded with 25,000 tonnes of Ukrainian wheat to be transported to Kenya, and 5,000 tonnes to Ethiopia, at the port of Chornomorsk, Ukraine, on February 18.

Russia’s decision to terminate the Black Sea grain deal is a “stab on the back at global food security prices,” the Kenyan Ministry of Foreign Affairs warned Tuesday.

Korir Sing’Oei, the principal secretary of foreign affairs, said in a tweet Tuesday that the decision “disproportionately impacts” countries in the Horn of Africa that have already been impacted by drought.

The Russian government said Monday that it is allowing a deal struck to allow the export of Ukrainian grain to expire. The deal allowed Ukraine to export grain from its ports and navigate safe passage through the Black Sea to Turkey’s Bosphorus Strait.  

A UN official said Monday that the main concern is the inevitable human suffering that will result from the deal’s termination. “There is simply too much at stake in a hungry and hurting world,” the official said.

More about the deal’s impact in Africa: The initiative has allowed for the export of nearly 33 million metric tons of food from Ukraine. The World Food Programme has shipped more than 725,000 tons to support humanitarian operations – relieving, the official said, hunger in some of the hardest hit corners of the world, including Afghanistan, Ethiopia, Kenya, Somalia, Sudan and Yemen. 

CNN’s Mick Krever contributed reporting to this post.

The TQ Samsun is the last grain ship to leave Ukraine under the Black Sea grain initiative. Seen here anchored in the Black Sea near the entrance of the Bosphorus Strait in Istanbul, Turkey, on July 17.

A senior European Union official said the EU is “extremely concerned” about Russia’s withdrawal from the Black Sea Grain Initiative and will expand its solidarity lanes to aid in exporting Ukraine’s grain.

Speaking to journalists in Brussels on Tuesday, the official said Moscow’s decision to leave the grain initiative was “putting in danger food security for hundreds of millions of people. And that is serious enough for Russia for Putin to reconsider.”

The official said the EU’s “first line of action is to work with the UN. Also with Türkiye.” Adding that a number of European Foreign Ministers who are in New York and “are talking to the Secretary General Guterres, to the UN staff” to urge “Russia to reconsider.”

“But it’s not for us to negotiate” the official explained, saying “it’s for the UN, it’s for Türkiye,” as “they understand to what extent this is a serious move.”

The official said that “at the same time we will be obviously working on expanding and reinforcing our solidarity lanes.” 

EU’s lifeline for Ukraine goods: The so-called “solidarity lanes” — established by the EU in May 2022 – are designed to provide alternative land routes for the exportation of Ukrainian grain after Moscow blockaded docks in the Black Sea region. 

The measures include new border posts, flexible customs checks, logistics support, prioritization of Ukrainian agricultural exports and new storage facilities on the EU’s side of the border. 

The EU official’s remarks come as Kyiv and its allies warn that the move could worsen food insecurity and increase prices.

Speaking last week, President of the European Commission Ursula von der Leyen said: “The solidarity lanes have made it possible for 45 million tonnes of grain and agri-food products to be brought from Ukraine via the European Union to the rest of the world.”

What to know about the deal: The agreement, brokered last year by Turkey and the UN, allowed Kyiv to export grain from its ports and navigate safe passage through the Black Sea after Moscow blockaded docks in the region. The deal had been renewed three times, but Russia has argued that it has been hampered in exporting its own products.

Air strikes by both Russian and Ukrainian forces ramped up overnight, in the aftermath of Kyiv’s attack on the vital Crimea bridge Monday.

Here are the latest developments: