July 22, 2022 Russia-Ukraine news

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

Rafael Mariano Grossi, the director general of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), called on Friday “for maximum restraint” following recent reports indicating an alarming situation at Europe’s largest nuclear plant in Zaporizhzhia, Ukraine.

The plant is located in the Russian occupied part of southern Ukraine and the IAEA said it has not been able to visit the facility since before the conflict began five months ago.

On Monday, Dmytro Orlov, the mayor of the Russian-occupied city of Enerhodar, which is adjacent to the plant, said that an unexplained incident at the plant left several Russian soldiers injured as well as a number of dead people.

Orlov, who’s not in the city, said there was a lot of speculation surrounding what had happened, but that on Monday afternoon nine Russian soldiers “were urgently delivered to the city hospital with injuries of varying severity. Some had been hospitalized and one was in intensive care.”

“There are also dead people, but we cannot give their exact numbers at the moment,” he said.

“We will not guess what caused the simultaneous ‘thinning’ of the ranks of the occupiers at the facility,” Orlov said. But he added that the Russians “were so frightened that they ran around the [power] station’s territory in a panic” and had blocked two shifts of power plant workers.

The IAEA said that “in recent weeks, there have been a series of reports, both in the media and in the form of official communications received by the IAEA, suggesting that the already difficult and stressful conditions facing Ukrainian staff at the plant have deteriorated further.”

Grossi stressed that the UN nuclear watchdog must be able to send a mission to the Zaporizhzhia plant to “conduct essential safety, security and safeguards activities at the facility.”

The White House said it welcomes the agreement between Russia, Ukraine and Turkey on exporting grain out of Ukraine, but warned actually implementing the agreement would require all sides’ adhering to their commitments.

“The devil’s in the details here,” said John Kirby, the National Security Council communications coordinator.

He thanked the United Nations secretary general and Turkish President Erdogan for helping broker the agreement and said it could help alleviate the potential for food shortages around the world. 

But he said “success, of course, is going to depend on Russia’s compliance with this arrangement.”

He said the deal’s success would “come down to implementation and Russia’s compliance. “

 “A lot of it’s going to depend on implementation and the degree to which the Russians actually agree to their end of the bargain,” he said, adding the US was “hopeful” it would alleviate global food insecurity.

Meanwhile, US Secretary of State Antony Blinken said the deal is “a positive step towards addressing the far-reaching impacts of Russia’s war,” but said Russia must end the war in order to eliminate the risk of a global food security catastrophe. 

“The world’s hungry cannot wait, and we expect the implementation of today’s deal to commence swiftly and proceed without interruption or interference,” Blinken said.

The top US diplomat said “Russia has weaponized food since the beginning of this crisis.”

“An end to Russia’s blockade of Ukraine’s agricultural exports through the Black Sea is, therefore, only one of the many steps Russia needs to take to ensure that food from Ukraine makes it to global markets,” he said.

“Global food security will remain at risk for as long as Russia continues its unjustified and brutal aggression against Ukraine,” Blinken said. 

The commander of an Ukranian unit shows the rockets on HIMARS vehicle in Eastern Ukraine on July 1.

The US is seeing “indications” that Russian forces fighting in Ukraine are “trying to adjust for the effects the HIMARS (high mobility artillery rocket systems) are having on them” on the battlefield, a senior US military official told reporters on Friday.

The official could not say how effective Russian forces’ efforts to mitigate the impact from the HIMARS has been.

“I can’t tell you what level of effect they’re having, but it doesn’t seem to be that good,” the official said. 

The official also noted reports that Russian forces have destroyed four HIMARS are false.

“As of this morning, in our conversations with Ukrainians, that is not true, so all of the HIMARS continue to really be a thorn in the Russians’ side,” the official added.

The White House announced additional security assistance to Ukraine on Friday, the latest in a steady flow of billions of dollars worth of US munitions to help sustain the country’s fight against Russia.

John Kirby, the communications coordinator for the US National Security Council, said the new $270 million package would include medium range rocket systems and tactical drones.

The latest package brings the total US assistance to Ukraine since the start of the Biden administration to $8.2 billion, Kirby said, and comes as the Russian war in Ukraine nears its fifth month.

Kirby said Biden would approve additional aid packages in the weeks and months to come.

The new package includes:

Victoria Nuland, undersecretary of state for political affairs with the U.S. Department of State, speaks during a hearing in Washington, on March 8, 2022. 

A top State Department official said that pressure from the global community and Russia’s need for money from its own agricultural exports may have led Moscow to sign an agreement to allow Ukrainian grain to transit through the Black Sea. 

It is “now incumbent on Russia to actually implement this deal,” she told CNN hours after the deal was signed in Istanbul.

The agreement, which took weeks of negotiations, “is very well structured in terms of monitoring and in terms of, you know, channels that the grain ought to be able to get out of,” she said at the Aspen Security Forum Friday.

Nuland noted that “it should have been easy, you know, we could have done this on the back of an envelope in the middle of an afternoon with will.” But Russia’s blockade “made this not only a European crisis, but obviously a global crisis in terms of food security,” she added.

“Russia also was out there complaining to the world that its own fertilizer and grain couldn’t get out,” Nuland also said, noting that US sanctions did not block the export of those products, but their agreement to Friday’s deal “may also have had to do with the fact that it was hard for them to get shippers and insurers and others to move their grain so they also need the money, given what else we’re doing to them.”

A farmer from Zaporizhzhia told CNN he felt positively about the deal signed between Russia and Ukraine to unblock Black Sea ports for exporting grains, but he said he was weary of its implementation.

“We will watch and observe what will happen. It’s good that they signed. But there are no results yet,” Pavlo Serhienko said on Friday. “The price will be higher in the ports, but you still have to get there. We need to hire a car, logistics, etc. What will be the queues? How to go? Thousands of checkpoints.”

Serhienko went on to say that in his area, being able to export grain was only one of “a million problems.”

A farmer from Mykolaiv told CNN that the deal signed is important but he does not want it come at the expense of any military concessions to Moscow from Kyiv.

“For us, it is absolutely necessary. Our warehouses and elevators are full of grain. The grain of the last harvest, the grain of this harvest,” Mykhailo Trokhymovych said. “But we should sign this treaty only if we do not make any military concessions to Russia.”

The European Union announced Friday it has approved an additional 500 million euros ($510 million) in military aid to Ukraine.

These “two assistance measures under the European Peace Facility (EPF) [are] aimed to step up the EU’s support for the capabilities and resilience of the Ukrainian Armed Forces to defend the territorial integrity and sovereignty of the country, and protect the civilian population against the ongoing Russian military aggression,” the European Council said in a statement.

The additional 500 million euros bring EU’s total military aid package to Ukraine to 2.5 billion euros ($2.55 billion), according to the Council.

“The EU remains focused and steadfast in its support for Ukraine in its fight for freedom and independence. Ukraine needs more arms; we will provide them. In this context, EU member states agreed to mobilize a fifth tranche of military assistance of 500 million euros, making this a total of 2.5 billion euros of military equipment to the Ukrainian Armed Forces,” according to Josep Borrell, the EU’s High Representative for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy.

A deal signed Friday in Istanbul between Ukraine and Russia, and mediated by Turkey and the United Nations, would allow 5 million tonnes of grain exports per month from three Ukrainian ports, a senior UN official said Friday.

Here’s what we know about the details of the deal:

As part of the deal, grain ships will be able to navigate through a safe corridor in the Black Sea then pass through the Bosphorus in order to reach global markets, the official said. 

The vessels will be monitored by a Joint Coordination Centre (JCC), which will be established immediately in Istanbul and include representatives from Ukraine, Russia, Turkey and the UN.

Vessels would be inspected before they arrive in Ukraine by Russian, Ukrainian, Turkish and UN officials to ensure they are not carrying weapons, according to the official. 

Ukraine and Russia have agreed not to attack any ship identified as part of this initiative that is passing through the established channels. In case of an incident, JCC will intervene to resolve any possible issues, the official said.  

Representatives from the International Maritime Organization have been coordinating shipments with shipping networks, the official said. 

It may take several weeks before vessels start moving so that all logistical details of the deal can properly be implemented and inspection teams can be established, the official said. 

Nonetheless, the process has to start quickly so that Ukraine’s silos can be emptied for the new harvest, the official said. 

The deal is valid for 120 days from the date of signing and can be extended for the same period unless one of the parties has announced their intention to terminate it, said Ukrainian minister Oleksandr Kubrakov, who signed the deal, in a Facebook post.

Some 20 million tonnes of grain are held up in Ukraine, where the summer harvest is now well underway.

Ukraine’s Infrastructure Minister Oleksandr Kubrakov described the grain deal that he signed in Istanbul as “a great support for the Ukrainian economy.”

In a Facebook post published minutes after signing the agreement, Kubrakov confirmed details of the agreement previously outlined by a senior UN official.

A Joint Coordination Center would be established and “Turkey will establish Inspection Groups of representatives from all parties to ensure inspection of cargo and personnel heading to or leaving Ukrainian ports. The inspection will be held exceptionally in harbors,” he said.

He said the agreement would also encourage Ukrainian farmers to sow for next year. 

“Operating the seaports of Ukraine is our contribution to global food security and the world economy,” Kubrakov said, which would “slow the flywheel of inflation that has become a problem for the world.”

“This deal gives us opportunities, but we don’t stop working on developing alternative logistics routes and are ready for any scenario,” he said.

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan said that the agreement signed on facilitating grain export will relieve dangers of hunger for billions of people. 

“Millions of people will be relieved of this danger of hunger,” Erdoğan said. “In the coming days, we will see the start of ship traffic and many countries will have a breath of fresh air.”

“This will contribute to the entire process from the export to the arrival to destination and on all points we have reached an agreement,” Erdoğan added.

The implementation of the agreement will be through the Joint Coordination Center in Istanbul, he noted. “We carried out an intense and difficult process with Ukraine, Russia and UN officials for grain export. We were in constant contact. We held extensive consultations, the Ministers of Foreign Affairs and Defense put forth a great deal of effort.”

A combine harvester collects grain crops in a field in the Odesa Region, southern Ukraine, on June 22, 2022. 

The Russia-Ukraine deal to resume grain exports from Black Sea ports is “the way out” of the current export crisis, said Serhii Ivashchenko, director of the Ukrainian grain traders’ union.

“Because now, when we transport grain through European ports, the cost of logistics is so high that it eats up not only the profits of farmers, but also the cost of production,” he explained Friday. The cost of transporting grain through Constanta in Romania was two-thirds of the selling price, he said.

“Now Ukrainian farmers were forced to sell grain at a loss. And unblocking the ports will reduce the cost of logistics quite significantly,” he said. The cost of transporting grain through the Black Sea ports would be about one-tenth of the delivery of grain to European ports.

The union is looking at the agreement signed in Istanbul “with optimism,” Ivashchenko told CNN. “We are waiting for the published document to analyze it.”

“Ukraine concluded an agreement with the UN and with Turkey, and not with Russia, this is also a positive sign,” he added.

“To unblock the harbors of Ukrainian ports, where ships were specially flooded in order to complicate Russian landings from the sea, we have quite optimistic forecasts now,” he said. “It may take only a few weeks and it would be great if so.”

“Now a new harvest has started and we expect that the wheat harvest will be about 21 million tonnes. With such a harvest, we could export 13-15 million tonnes of wheat. Plus the harvest that we still had left (from 2021-22),” he added.

A deal allowing the export of Ukrainian grain through the Black Sea has been signed in the Turkish city of Istanbul on Friday, after months of negotiations between Ukraine and Russia mediated by Turkey and the United Nations, UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said Friday. 

The deal is aimed at resuming grain exports from Ukrainian ports, which have been blocked by the five-month conflict between Russia and Ukraine.

Western officials have accused Moscow of “weaponizing” food supplies, while the UN, leaders and experts have warned of a catastrophic food crisis as grain shipments have not been able to reach the global market.

Some 20 million tonnes of grain are held up in Ukraine, where the summer harvest is now well underway.

The agreement will include three Ukrainian ports, including Odesa, it will involve a Joint Coordination Center established in Istanbul, and agreed safe corridors for merchant shipping.

United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres, left, and Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, right, sit at the start of the signature ceremony for the safe transportation of grain and foodstuffs from Ukrainian ports, in Istanbul, Turkey, on July 22

Ukraine and Russia have agreed to a deal that would allow the resumption of vital grain exports from Ukrainian Black Sea ports — a major diplomatic breakthrough aimed at easing a global food crisis sparked by the war, United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said Friday.

This comes after months of negotiations between Ukraine and Russia mediated by Turkey and the United Nations.

“Today, there is a beacon on the Black Sea. A beacon of hope, a beacon of possibility, a beacon of relief in a world that needs it more than ever,” Guterres said. 

Guterres said the deal will bring relief for developing countries and help stabilize global food prices, “which were already at record levels even before the war – a true nightmare for developing countries.”

The agreement “did not come easy” and “it has been a long road” since Guterres first met with Russian President Vladimir Putin and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky to propose a plan for solutions in April.

“We count on the government of Turkey to maintain its critical role going forward,” he said, adding the UN will remain “closely involved in working for the agreement’s success.”

Guterres urged “all sides to spare no effort to implement their commitments” and said “we must also spare no effort for peace.”

“This is an unprecedented agreement between two parties engaged in bloody conflict. But that conflict continues. People are dying every day. Fighting is raging every day,” he said. 

“The beacon of hope on the Black Sea is shining bright today, thanks to the collective efforts of so many. In these trying and turbulent times for the region and our globe, let that beacon guide the way towards easing human suffering and securing peace,” he added. 

German Chancellor Olaf Scholz speaks during a press conference in Berlin, Germany, on July 22.

German Chancellor Olaf Scholz announced a multibillion-euro bailout to rescue the Germany’s gas importer Uniper, which has been hit hard by the reduction of gas supply as a result of the war in Ukraine.

Under the deal, the German government will acquire a 30% stake in Uniper — the country’s largest importer of Russian gas — and provide it with funding.

As the gas supply was reduced, Uniper had to purchase more expensive gas from other sources on the market in order to fulfil its contracts, which has caused major liquidity problems.

“No one will be left alone,” Scholz said as he announced the bailout. “We can shoulder problems this year and next year and will help as long as necessary.”

Scholz went on to say that German households would have to pay for higher gas prices in the fall.

“You will never walk alone,” Scholz added, saying that Germany will launch a welfare payment reform in 2023.

There will be legal protection for low-income families who have problems paying their energy bills, according to the German chancellor.

“We will do everything necessary, so that together as a country, as companies and as citizens, we get through this situation so that no one is put in a situation that is insoluble for him or her,” he said. 

The commander of the unit shows the rockets on a HIMARS vehicle in Ukraine on July 1.

The US assesses Ukraine “has taken out more than a hundred high-value targets,” according to a senior US defense official. Most of the targets have been in the east in recent weeks as the Ukrainians have been able to improve their precision targeting with the use of US provided artillery. 

“These strikes are steadily degrading the Russian ability to supply their troops, command and control of their forces, and carry out their illegal war of aggression,” General Mark Milley, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff told reporters on Wednesday.

The Ukrainians are “attacking Russian command posts, ammunition depots, air-defense sites, radar and communications nodes, and long-range artillery positions,” the official said. This is contributing to the broader assessment that Ukraine has been able to make progress against Russian forces. However, the US also assesses that Russia still is launching “tens of thousands” of artillery rounds per day.

“They can’t keep it up forever,” the Russians “have expended a lot of smarter munitions …their capabilities are getting dumber,” the official noted, adding that Russia has not taken out a single HIMARS system yet, but it is likely they will “get lucky” and do so at some point.

The fight for Donetsk is “likely last through the summer” with Russia achieving slow gains at a high cost, the official said.

Russian fatalities include “thousands” of lieutenants and captains, “hundreds” of colonels, and “many” generals, the official said. “The chain of command is still struggling.”

The US estimates Russia has committed nearly 85% of its army to the invasion of Ukraine.

The chief of Britain’s foreign intelligence service said he believes that Russia could be “about to run out of steam” in Ukraine. “I think our assessment is that the Russians will increasingly find it difficult to supply manpower material over the next few weeks,” Richard Moore, the head of MI6 told CNN on Thursday. “They will have to pause some way and that will give the Ukrainians opportunities to strike back,” he said.

Richard Moore, the head of MI6 speaks with CNN, at the Aspen Security Forum on Thursday July 21.

British spy chief Richard Moore has said Russia is “about to run out of steam” in Ukraine, in an interview with CNN’s Jim Sciutto.

“Russians will increasingly find it difficult to supply manpower, material over the next few weeks. They will have to pause, and that will give Ukrainians an opportunity to strike back,” Moore, chief of MI6, said in the interview, his first outside of the UK.

“(Putin) has suffered a strategic failure in Ukraine,” and forces have lost 15,000 lives, Moore said on the sidelines of the Aspen Security Forum, adding that it’s “probably a conservative estimate.”

However, Moore said it is very important for Ukrainians’ morale to demonstrate their ability to strike back.

“It will be an important reminder to the rest of Europe that this is a winnable campaign by the Ukrainians. Because we are about to go into a pretty tough winter.”

“Winter is coming and clearly, in that atmosphere with the sort of pressure on gas supplies and all the rest, we are in for a tough time,” Moore added.

He said that following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, European countries have taken concerted effort against Russian intelligence.

“North of 400 Russian intelligence officers working under diplomatic cover have been expelled,” and it has reduced Russian ability to spy in Europe by half.

When asked about rumors of Putin’s ill-health, Moore said: “There is no evidence that Putin is suffering from serious ill-health.”

His comments came after the expulsion of more than 400 Russian intelligence officers from cities across Europe and the arrest of several deep-cover spies posing as civilians.

Moore told CNN that since Russia invaded Ukraine in February, European countries have expelled “north of 400 Russian intelligence officers operating under diplomatic cover” across the bloc.

“And we reckon, in the UK, that has probably reduced their ability to do their business to spy for Russia in Europe by half,” Moore said. He added that a number of “illegals,” or Russian spies operating under deep cover and masquerading as ordinary civilians, have also been exposed and arrested in recent months.

Asked whether the war in Ukraine has made Russia a “target rich environment” for the UK and its allies to recruit potential assets, Moore would only say that “it is our hope” that Russians in the intelligence and diplomatic services will “reflect on what they are witnessing in Ukraine” and decide to “strike back against the system” as many did during the Prague Spring in 1968.

Read more here.

Unblocking Ukrainian ports is the only way to prevent a global food crisis and save Ukrainian agricultural producers, said Mykola Horbachov, the President of the Ukrainian Grain Association.

Horbachov was speaking to Ukrainian television ahead of the expected agreement in Istanbul Friday to secure safe corridors through the Black Sea for Ukrainian agricultural exports.

Russians had stolen about 500,000 tonnes of grain in occupied territories and about 1 million tonnes of grain remains in the elevators under the control of the occupiers, he claimed, estimating that the losses of the Ukrainian agricultural industry due to the war at about $20 billion. 

Horbachov forecast that the grain harvest in the current season will decrease by 30-35%, which is about 70 million tonnes of grain and oilseeds compared to 106 million tonnes last season. And he said farmers will need help in order to be able to carry out the next sowing campaign, which will start in 2 months.

A farmer harvests wheat as he drives past a crater suspected to be caused by an air strike in Kramatorsk, Ukraine, on July 7.

However, the harvest in Ukraine was gaining momentum, the Ukrainian Ministry of Agrarian Policy said Friday. Dnipropetrovsk, Mykolaiv, and Odesa regions had each collected more than a million tonnes of new crop grain. Peas were threshed for more than 59% of the area, and rapeseed for a third.

It said figures from the regions showed that an area of 2.1 million hectares had been harvested so far.

Across Ukraine, the harvest of grain is underway - but every day brings new details about the perils farmers are facing as they try to bring in the crops, and about the theft of produce and equipment in Russian-controlled areas.

Read more here.

Oleksandr Kubrakov, Minister of Infrastructure of Ukraine and UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres attend a meeting in a location given as Istanbul, Turkey, in this handout picture released on July 22.

The Ukrainian government has warned Russia against provocations as the two countries are expected to sign a deal with the United Nations and Turkey that would facilitate the exports of grain.

“No transport escort by Russian ships and no presence of Russian representatives in our ports,” Mykhailo Podolyak, adviser to the Ukrainian President’s chief of staff tweeted on Friday. “In case of provocations, an immediate military response.”

Podolyak also added that Ukraine was not signing an agreement with Russia, but with Turkey and the UN. He also said inspections of ships would be carried out in Ukrainian waters by joint groups, if necessary.

Over half of Ukraine’s regions are under extreme fire danger warnings due to high temperatures, as parts of Europe grapple with a sweltering heat wave.

Information updated by the Ukrainian Hydrometeorological Center Friday morning showed that 15 of country’s 27 regions received an orange fire threat level signalling “dangerous weather conditions.”

The extreme fire danger is due to a “threatening combination of high air temperature and dry weather,” the Center said.

The affected regions are largely in the west and south of Ukraine, according to a map published by the Center. Regions with warnings include Odesa, Mykolaiv, Kherson, and Zaporizhzhia.

“July 23-25 will see the extreme fire hazard level in the south of Ukraine, in western regions and Vinnytsia and Zhytomyr regions,” the Center added.

Much of Europe has been experiencing record temperatures and wildfires in the past week. 

The UK recorded its hottest ever temperature of 40.3 degrees Celsius (104.54 degrees Fahrenheit) Tuesday. Elsewhere in Spain and Portugal, more than 1,700 people have died due to the current heat wave, the head of WHO Regional Office for Europe Hans Kluge said Friday. 

Slovenia is facing “no doubt, one of the biggest wildfires in its history,” EU Commissioner Janez Lenarčič said Thursday.

The heat is expected to peak for parts of western Europe and “move eastward,” World Meteorological Organization (WMO) official Robert Stefanski said at a press conference Tuesday.