Russian drone strikes hit Ukrainian border port key to grain exports US to put forward UN resolution to authorise a Kenyan-led police mission to fight gangs in Haiti

LINDA THOMASGREENFIELD, United States ambassador to the United Nations speaks during the UN Security Council meeting to discuss the maintenance of peace and security of Ukraine, July 21, 2023, at United Nations headquarters.

Ukraine

Associated Press

RUSSIAN drones on Wednesday hit a Ukrainian port city along the border with Romania, causing significant damage and a huge fire at facilities that are key to Ukrainian grain exports. The attacks followed the end of a deal with Russia that had allowed Ukrainian shipments to world markets from the Black Sea port of Odesa.

Since scrapping the deal, Russia has hammered the country’s ports with strikes, compounding the blow to the key industry. In the past two weeks, dozens of drones and missile attacks have targeted the port of Odesa and the region’s river ports, which are being used as alternative routes.

The head of the Ukrainian president’s office, Andriy Yermak, said the city of Izmail, on the Danube River that forms part of the UkraineRomania border, was hit in the strikes.

Video obtained by The Associated Press showed explosions and a large fire in the distance on the Danube, captured by fishermen in Romania, a NATO member, on the other side of the river.

Three Ukrainian ports along the Danube are currently operating.

“The goal of the enemy was clearly the facilities of the ports and industrial infrastructure of the region,” Ukraine’s South operational command wrote in an update on Facebook. As a result of the attack, a fire broke out at industrial and port facilities, and a grain elevator was damaged.

Ukrainian infrastructure minister Oleksandr Kubrakov said that about 40,000 metric tons (44,000 tons) of grain, which had been expected by countries in Africa, China and Israel, was damaged in the attack.

Separately, Ukraine’s air force intercepted 23 Iranian-made Shahed drones fired by Russia over the country overnight, mostly in Odesa and Kyiv, according to a morning update.

All 10 drones fired at Kyiv were intercepted, said Serhii Popko, the head of Kyiv City Administration. Numerous loud explosions were heard overnight as air defense systems were activated. Debris from felled drones hit three districts of the capital, damaging a nonresidential building, Popko said.

“Russian terrorists have once again targeted ports, grain facilities and global food security,” President Volodymyr Zelenskyy posted Wednesday morning on Telegram. “The world must respond.”

He confirmed that some drones hit their targets, with the most “significant damage” in the south of Ukraine.

Wheat prices rose about 3% and corn prices nearly 2% on Wednesday in Chicago trading following the new attacks, before erasing those spikes and trading down. It showed the continued volatility in world markets as Russia targets Ukraine’s ports and agricultural infrastructure.

Ukraine is a major supplier of wheat, corn, vegetable oil and other agricultural products important to the Middle East, Africa and parts of Asia where people are struggling with high food prices and hunger.

Ukraine also can export by road and rail through Europe, but those routes are more costly than going by the Black Sea and have stirred divisions among nearby countries.

Russia and Ukraine agreed a year ago on a deal brokered by the United Nations and Turkey that reopened three Ukrainian Black Sea ports blocked by fighting and provided assurances that ships entering the ports would not be attacked. Russia declined to renew the agreement last month, complaining that its own exports were being held up.

In a telephone conversation Wednesday, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan told Russia’s Vladimir Putin that he would seek to restore the Black Sea initiative to export Ukrainian grain, according to his office.

Referring to the deal as a “bridge of peace,” Erdogan told Putin that Turkey would “continue to carry out intensive efforts and diplomacy for the continuation of the Black Sea initiative.”

The statement said the two leaders had agreed on Putin visiting Turkey but did not provide a date. Erdogan has previously

UNITED NATIONS Associated Press

THE United States said Tuesday it will put forward a UN Security Council resolution that will authorize Kenya to lead a multinational police force to help combat gangs in Haiti that control much of the capital and are spreading through the Caribbean nation.

US Ambassador Linda Thomas-Greenfield told a news conference at the start of the US presidency of the council this month that “we welcome Kenya’s decision to lead the multinational force (and) we will be working on a resolution to support that effort.” requirements for the police mission.

Haiti’s Prime Minister Ariel Henry sent an urgent appeal last October for “the immediate deployment of a specialized armed force, in sufficient quantity” to stop the gangs. UN SecretaryGeneral António Guterres had been appealing unsuccessfully since then for a lead nation to help restore order to Latin America’s most impoverished country.

Thomas-Greenfield said the United States will work with other council members on a resolution “that will give the Kenyans what they require to establish their presence in Haiti.”

She gave no timetable but expressed hope that a resolution will be adopted unanimously, as the last two Haiti resolutions were.

An October 2022 resolution demanded an immediate end to violence and criminal activity in Haiti and imposed sanctions on individuals and groups threatening peace and stability — starting with a powerful gang leader, Jimmy “Barbecue” Cherizier. A resolution adopted on July 14 asked Guterres to come up with “a full range of options” within 30 days to help combat Haiti’s armed gangs including a non-UN multinational force.

Thomas-Greenfield said the situation is “unusual, but what is happening in Haiti is unusual.” that will be able to deal with the situation in the future.”

Haiti’s gangs have grown in power since the July 7, 2021 assassination of President Jovenel Moïse and are now estimated to control up to 80% of the capital. The surge in killings, rapes and kidnappings has led to a violent uprising by civilian vigilante groups.

Compounding the gang warfare is the country’s political crisis: Haiti was stripped of all democratically elected institutions when the terms of the country’s remaining 10 senators expired in early January.

Welcoming Kenya’s offer, Haiti’s Foreign Minister Jean Victor Généus said: “Haiti appreciates this expression of African solidarity and looks forward to welcoming Kenya’s proposed evaluation mission in the coming weeks.” said Putin would come during August.

A Kremlin statement about the call said “readiness was confirmed to return to the Istanbul agreements as soon as the West actually fulfills all the obligations to Russia recorded in them.” It said preparations were continuing for “a possible meeting” of Putin and Erdogan.

Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov on Wednesday evening said the two leaders agreed to “in the nearest future determine exactly” where the meeting will take place and when.

Two civilians were wounded in shelling of the city of Kherson during the night, regional Gov. Oleksandr Prokudin said Wednesday. A summary from Zelenskyy’s office said a doctor was killed and five medical personnel were wounded in an attack on a city hospital in Kherson, but didn’t specify if the attack was on Wednesday or Tuesday.

A 91-year-old woman died in an attack on a village in the Kharkiv region, the presidential office said.

In the eastern region of Donetsk, four people were wounded in Russian shelling over the past day, according to Gov. Pavlo Kyrylenko.

The area around the city of Nikopol, across the river from the Russian-held Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant, was shelled three times, Gov. Serhiy Lysak said.

Overall in the war, Ukrainian authorities have so far confirmed the deaths of at least 10,749 civilians, and at least 15,599 more have been wounded, Yuri Belousov from Ukraine’s Prosecutor General’s Office said in an interview with InterfaxUkraine that was released Wednesday.

“We understand that these numbers are the tip of the iceberg. Once we de-occupy our lands, the numbers will grow many times, possibly tens of times. I think in Mariupol alone there will be tens of thousands of deaths,” Belousov, who runs a department for combatting crimes committed during an armed conflict, said.

More than nine months later, Kenya was the first country to “positively consider” leading a force, offering to send 1,000 police to help train and assist the Haitian National Police to “restore normalcy in the country and protect strategic installations.” Kenya’s Foreign Ministry said Saturday it plans to send a task force to Haiti in the next few weeks to assess operational

“This is not a traditional peacekeeping force, this is not a traditional security situation,” Thomas-Greenfield said. “We have gangs that have overtaken the country, ... that are terrorizing civilians every single day.”

She stressed that “it is very much a police action to stabilize the country so that the country can get back on the path of democracy, that they can move forward with a political process that will lead to a stable government

UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres also welcomed Kenya’s offer and called on the Security Council to support a non-UN multinational operation in Haiti, UN deputy spokesman Farhan Haq said Monday.

The UN chief encouraged UN member nations, “particularly from the region, to join forces from Kenya” in supporting the country’s police, the spokesman said. Guterres said the estimate by the UN independent expert for Haiti, William O’Neill, that up to 2,000 additional anti-gang police officers are needed is no exaggeration.

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