UN Secretary-General António Guterres and Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan are scheduled to meet with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky in the western Ukraine city of Lviv on Thursday. Building on a nuclear power plant, and finding a political solution to the war started by Russia.
Efforts to alleviate the food crisis continue, and ships carrying exports from Ukraine are on the brink of an agreement brokered by the United Nations and Turkey between Russia and Ukraine in late July. It is now possible to depart based on
Guterres is scheduled to travel to visit the port of Odessa on Friday and to Istanbul on Saturday to monitor the export system, including inspections of ships entering and leaving, as required by Russia. I will meet with the coordination center.
The center said it expects an inspection team on Thursday to check four of his ships that left Ukraine this week.
These include the Osprey S carrying corn to Turkey, the Rams and its cargo of wheat bound for Turkey, the Brave Commander carrying wheat to Djibouti, and the Bonita carrying corn to South Korea.
In addition, he will have four ships inspected en route to Ukraine. Russia has tried to prevent incoming ships from bringing weapons to Ukrainian forces.
Three more ships left Ukraine's Black Sea ports on Wednesday. The Sara, carrying 8,000 tons of maize, and the Efe, carrying 7,250 tons of sunflower oil, left Odesa port bound for Turkey, according to the coordination center.
Twenty-four ships have left Ukraine since exports began on 1 August.
Crimean Explosions
Last week's series of explosions in Russian-occupied Crimea were part of a new strategy deployed by Ukrainian forces in the war, Ukrainian official said Wednesday.
A week ago, nine of his fighter planes were destroyed in an attack on a Russian air base in Crimea. A series of explosions rocked an ammunition storage facility at a Russian military base on Tuesday.
Russia called the recent attacks "sabotage".
A Ukrainian official, who spoke on condition of anonymity, told theWashington Postthat Ukrainian special forces were responsible for the attack in Crimea.
Ukraine's Defense Minister Oleksiy Reznikov told the Post that the official position of the Ukrainian government could neither confirm nor deny Ukraine's involvement in the attack on Crimea.
But Reznikov also told the Post that attacking targets behind Russian fronts is part of Ukraine's current military strategy. It added that there were no weapons within the reach of targets in Crimea from areas under its control.
In 2014 Russia annexed Crimea from Ukraine. Ukrainian officials have pledged to retake Crimea and other territories now occupied by Russia after Russia invaded Ukraine on February 24.
In a speech following the August 9 attacks, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said the war "must start in Crimea and end in Crimea – its liberation."
Elsewhere, seven people were killed and 16 wounded in a Russian shelling of Kharkov, Ukraine's second-largest city, the Ukrainian Emergency Service said Wednesday.
Kharkov has been a frequent target, and Zelensky called Wednesday's attack in a Telegram post a "vicious and cynical attack against civilians without justification."
Also on Wednesday, Ukraine conducted a disaster response exercise after repeated shelling of the Russian-occupied Zaporizhia nuclear power plant.
Ukraine's Energy Minister Herman Kharushchenko told Reuters the government was very concerned about the safety of the power plant in Enerkhodar in southeastern Ukraine.
Both sides have accused the other of being involved in what they call "nuclear terrorism" following recent attacks near the facility, according to a Reuters report.
Some information in this report was provided by The Associated Press, Agence France-Presse, and Reuters.