MOSCOW — Russia has said it is suspending its participation in the agreement to ensure the continuation of Ukrainian grain exports — vital for food supplies to poor countries — linking the decision to a drone attack on Russian ships in occupied Crimea on Saturday morning.
The Defense Ministry announced the move, and it was also reported by the state news agency TASS.
"Taking into account the terrorist act carried out by the Kiev regime with the participation of British experts against ships of the Black Sea fleet and civilian vessels involved in the security of grain corridors, Russia suspends its participation in the implementation of the agreement on exports of agricultural products from Ukrainian ports," the Russian Defense Ministry announced on Telegram.
The move comes a day after UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres urged Russia and Ukraine to renew the deal that has seen more than nine million tons of grain exported from Ukraine and brought down global food prices.
Earlier on Saturday, the Russian military blamed Ukraine and Britain for what it called a massive drone attack on its Black Sea fleet in Russian-annexed Crimea. Moscow said "minor damage" was caused to one ship, and the vessels were involved in protecting convoys exporting Ukrainian grain.
The Ukrainian president's chief of staff, Andriy Yermak, accused Russia of "blackmail" and "invented terror attacks" on its own territory — an apparent response to Russian accusations that Ukraine was behind the blasts.
An adviser to Ukraine's Interior Ministry, Anton Gerashchenko, claimed in his Telegram channel that "careless handling of explosives" in occupied Crimea led to explosions aboard four warships belonging to Russia's Black Sea Fleet.
Regarding the UK, the Russian Defense Ministry also blamed "British specialists based in Ochakov, Mykolaiv region" for preparing a "terrorist act" and training Ukrainian military personnel.
It also said British navy personnel blew up the Nord Stream gas pipelines last month, without providing any evidence. Britain's Defense Ministry said the Russian claims were false and designed to distract from Russian military failures in Ukraine.
Russia also said on Saturday that the accelerated deployment of modernized US B61 tactical nuclear weapons at NATO bases in Europe would lower the "nuclear threshold" and that Moscow would take the move into account in its military planning.
The United States told a closed NATO meeting this month that it would accelerate the deployment of modernized weapons arriving at European bases several months earlier than planned, according to Politico.
Its report said that an upgraded version of the B61, the B61-12, would be delivered in December.
"We cannot ignore the plans to modernize nuclear weapons, those free-fall bombs that are in Europe," Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Alexander Grushko told state RIA news agency.
"The United States is modernizing them, increasing their accuracy and reducing the power of the nuclear charge, that is, they turn these weapons into 'battlefield weapons', thereby reducing the nuclear threshold."
The 12-ft B61-12 gravity bomb carries a lower yield nuclear warhead than many earlier versions but is more accurate and can penetrate below ground, according to research by the Federation of American Scientists published in 2016.
A Pentagon spokesman quoted by Politico said nuclear details would not be discussed but that the modernization of B61 weapons had been under way for years.
Russia's invasion of Ukraine has triggered the gravest confrontation between Moscow and the West since the 1962 Cuban Missile Crisis when the two Cold War superpowers came closest to nuclear war.
Meanwhile, some €17 billion in assets of Russian oligarchs and entities have been frozen in the European Union across seven member states following sanctions against Russia in response to the war in Ukraine, according to Brussels.
"So far, the assets of 90 people have been frozen, amounting to more than €17 billion in seven member states, including €2.2 billion in Germany," EU Justice Commissioner Didier Reynders told German media group Funke, including the daily Westdeutsche Allgemeine Zeitung.
At the beginning of July, Reynders put a figure of some €13.8 billion, mainly in five countries, on the freezing in the EU of assets held by oligarchs or members of the Russian elite sanctioned by the EU27.
"If it is criminal money confiscated by the EU, it can be transferred to a compensation fund for Ukraine," the commissioner also said in the interview published on Saturday.
Ukrainian officials are calling for these frozen assets to be used to rebuild their country after the war. "However, this amount is far from sufficient to finance reconstruction," Reynders warned.
Western sanctions have also led to "the freezing of €300 billion" of Russian Central Bank foreign exchange reserves around the world, a sum that could be used as "collateral", the commissioner said.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky has expressed doubt over Russia's declaration that its partial mobilization was over, saying the poor performance of pro-Moscow forces meant more men could be needed.
Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu earlier said the call-up of 300,000 reservists to fight in Ukraine was complete.
"We have reports the enemy has completed its mobilization, as if there is no longer a need to send new waves of Russian citizens to the front. We feel very differently on the front lines," Zelensky said in his nightly video address on Friday.
"Even though Russia is trying to increase the pressure on our positions by using conscripts, they are so poorly prepared and equipped, so brutally used by their command, that it allows us to presume that very soon Russia may need a new wave of people to send to the war."
Ukraine announced on Friday "unprecedented" power cuts affecting a total of four million people, especially in the Kiev region, as Ukrainian energy facilities have been heavily damaged by numerous Russian strikes in recent weeks.
"In many cities and districts of our country, power cuts have been introduced to stabilize the situation," President Zelensky said in his daily address. Ukrainian operator DTEK warned that the coming days would bring "more severe and longer cuts".
In the Kiev region, as winter looms, the latest damage to utilities will mean outages of four or more hours a day, according to Ukrenergo, the state operator of Ukraine’s high-voltage transmission lines.
Kyiv regional governor Oleksiy Kuleba warned “more severe and longer shutdowns will be applied in the coming days". City mayor Vitali Klitschko said the power grid was operating in “emergency mode,” adding that he hoped Ukrenergo would find ways to address the shortage “in two to three weeks”.
In the Kharkiv region, home to Ukraine's second-largest city of the same name, governor Oleg Syniehubov said daily one-hour power outages would begin on Monday. Officials across Ukraine have urged people to conserve by reducing electricity consumption during peak hours and avoiding the use of high-voltage appliances. — Euronews
