The Sierra Leone-flagged ship Razoni, carrying 26,000 tons of corn, has left the port of Odesa, destined for Lebanon. It is the first departure since the start of the Russian invasion, according to Ukraine’s infrastructure ministry. “Ukraine together with our partners has taken another step today in preventing world hunger,” Oleksandr Kubrakov, Ukraine’s infrastructure minister, said in a statement on Monday. Kubrakov stressed that Ukraine had done “everything” to restore the ports and said the lifting of the blockade would give Ukraine’s economy $1bn in foreign exchange revenue.
Russia agreed to allow grain ships to leave Ukraine and to not attack them, in a deal signed on 22 July in Istanbul. But less than 24 hours later, the veracity of the deal was cast into doubt when Russian forces struck Odesa port. When questioned by Turkey’s defence minister, Russia at first denied it was involved in the attack. But the next day it issued a statement saying it had struck a Ukrainian vessel carrying western weapons that was in the port. Ukraine’s authorities rejected Russia’s explanation.
The EU and Nato on Monday welcomed the departure of the grain shipment from Ukraine as a “first step” towards easing the food crisis caused by the Russian invasion. But an EU spokesperson, Peter Stano, said Brussels still expected the “implementation of the whole deal and resumption of Ukrainian exports to the customers around the world”. The Kremlin has said in a short statement that the news of the first ship carrying grain to leave Ukraine’s port of Odesa is “very positive”.
The mayor of Mykolaiv has said an attack on medical facilities in the city today is “nothing more than cynical terrorism by Russian troops”. Oleksandr Syenkevych described the damage, informing residents “For some time, our emergency hospital will not be able to accept patients. Part of the hospital’s main building was also destroyed. There, too, it is necessary to put everything in order. This is an ordinary hospital, which every day received residents of the city, including victims of Russian shelling. Therefore, today’s attack on this medical facility is nothing more than cynical terrorism by Russian troops.”
Ukrainian forces have recaptured more than 40 settlements in the key southern region of Kherson, as Kyiv looks to drive back Russian troops in a counteroffensive, the local governor said Monday. “Today, 46 settlements have already been de-occupied in the Kherson region,” Dmytro Butriy, the head of the Ukrainian regional administration, told national TV. Butriy added that the majority of the regained villages lie in the northern part of the region, while some others are located in its southern part, close to the Black Sea and the heavily bombarded Mykolaiv region.
Moscow has blacklisted 39 Britons including Labour party leader Keir Starmer and former prime minister David Cameron. Russia’s foreign ministry said the citizens listed, including journalists, “contribute to the hostile course of London aimed at the demonisation of our country and its international isolation”.
Russia is moving large numbers of troops to Ukraine’s south in preparation for a Ukrainian counteroffensive, according to Ukraine’s deputy head of military intelligence. “They are increasing their troop numbers, preparing for our counteroffensive [in Ukraine’s south] and perhaps preparing to launch an offensive of their own,” Vadym Skibitsky said. The Ukrainian president, Volodymyr Zelenskiy, said Russia was relocating some of its troops from their positions in the east to the south in order to push towards Kherson’s regional capital as well as the Zaporizhzhia region.
Hundreds of thousands of civilians have been urged to evacuate the frontline eastern Donetsk region, the scene of fierce clashes with the Russian military. More than 50,000 children are still in the region, according to local officials. “They need to be evacuated, you cannot put them in mortal danger in the winter without heating, light, without the ability to keep them warm,” Kyiv’s ministry of reintegration of temporarily occupied territories said in a statement.
Russia claims five people were injured after a Ukrainian drone strike on its Black Sea fleet headquarters, prompting officials to cancel festivities planned for Navy Day. “Early this morning, [Ukraine] decided to spoil our Navy Day,” said Mikhail Razvozhayev, the head of the local Russian administration in Sevastopol in Crimea. “An unidentified object flew into the yard of the fleet headquarters. According to preliminary data, it was a drone. Five people were injured.”
Russian strikes hit the southern Ukrainian port city of Mykolaiv early on Sunday, wounding three people and damaging homes and schools, according to the city’s mayor, Oleksandr Senkevych. Zelenskiy described the strikes as “probably the most brutal” on the city and region of the entire war.
Russian shelling on Mykolaiv reportedly killed one of Ukraine’s wealthiest men, Oleksiy Vadatursky, and his wife, Raisa. Vadatursky headed the grain production and export business Nibulon, which included a fleet of ships for sending grain abroad. A presidential adviser, Mykhailo Podolyak, said Vadatursky was specifically targeted and his death was “not an accident, but a well-thought-out and organised premeditated murder”.
The International Committee of the Red Cross has not yet received permission to visit the building in Olenivka where at least 50 prisoners Ukrainian prisoners of war were killed, it said on Sunday. Russia said it had invited experts from the UN and Red Cross to examine the deaths “in the interests of conducting an objective investigation”. Zelenskiy denounced the attack as a war crime.
Two-hundred Russian marines from the 810th naval infantry brigade refused to return to fight in the southern regions of Ukraine, according to Ukraine’s defence ministry intelligence directorate.
Ukraine’s harvest this year could be half its usual amount because of the Russian invasion, Zelenskiy claimed. “Ukrainian harvest this year is under the threat to be twice less,” the Ukrainian president said in comments likely to intensify fears of global hunger.
Britain will now require foreign companies holding UK property to identify their true owners as part of a crackdown on Russian oligarchs and corrupt elites laundering illicit wealth. The Register of Overseas Entities will seek to ensure criminals cannot hide behind secretive chains of shell companies or use property in Britain to hide dirty money, the business ministry said in a statement on Monday.
The European Union has sent Ukraine €1bn (£837m) in financial aid to support its budget and help it tackle the financial consequences of the Russian invasion, the Ukrainian prime minister said on Monday. Denys Shmyhal wrote on the Telegram messaging app: “The €1bn is a part of a large package of support for Ukraine … totalling €9bn. The funds will help finance priority budgetary needs.”