Kyiv, Ukraine (AP) – Moscow on Thursday pressured the West to lift sanctions on Russia for war in Ukraine, seeking to shift the blame for a growing food crisis that has been exacerbated by Kyiv’s inability to ship millions of tons of grain and others. agricultural products during the attack.
Britain immediately accused Russia of “trying to keep the world afloat”, insisting there would be no easing of sanctions, and a senior US diplomat criticized “pure barbarism, sadistic cruelty and illegality”. of the invasion.
Russian President Vladimir Putin told Italian Prime Minister Mario Draghi that Moscow “is ready to make a significant contribution to overcoming the food crisis by exporting cereals and fertilizers on the condition that the restrictions on political grounds imposed by the West “. Reading of the Kremlin call.
Ukraine is one of the world’s largest exporters of wheat, corn and sunflower oil, but the war and the Russian blockade of its ports have halted much of this flow, endangering the world’s food supply. Many of these ports are now also heavily exploited.
Russia is also a major exporter of grain, and Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said the West “must cancel illegal decisions that make it difficult to rent ships and export grain.” His comments seemed to be an effort to group together the blockade of Ukraine’s exports with what Russia says are its difficulties in moving its own goods.
Western officials have denied the allegations. U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said last week that food, fertilizer and seeds are exempt from US and many other sanctions, and that Washington is working to make sure countries know that flow of these goods will not be affected.
With the war in its fourth month, world leaders have increased calls for solutions. World Trade Organization Director-General Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala said some 25 million tonnes of Ukrainian grain were stored and another 25 million tonnes could be harvested next month.
European countries have tried to alleviate the crisis by moving grain out of the country by rail, but trains can only carry a small part of what Ukraine produces, and ships are needed for most exports.
At the same time, the Russian Ministry of Defense proposed corridors to allow foreign ships to leave the ports of the Black Sea, as well as Mariupol in the Sea of Azov.
Mikhail Mizintsev, who heads Russia’s National Defense Control Center, said 70 foreign ships from 16 countries were in six Black Sea ports, including Odessa, Kherson and Mykolaiv. He did not specify how many may be ready to bring food.
Ukraine’s foreign minister, Dmytro Kuleba, said his country was willing to agree on safe runners in principle, but he was not sure he could trust Russia to allow safe passage and not to send its military ships. ” to sneak into the port to attack Odessa.
British Foreign Secretary Liz Truss said Putin was “trying to keep the world afloat” by demanding that some sanctions be lifted before allowing the resumption of shipments of Ukrainian grain.
“It is essentially hunger and food shortages among the world’s poorest people,” Truss said during a visit to Sarajevo, Bosnia and Herzegovina. “What we can’t have is a lifting of sanctions, no pacification, which will simply make Putin stronger in the long run.”
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky has called for tougher sanctions on Russia, including a ban on Russian oil and gas by the European Union.
“Pressing Russia is literally a matter of saving lives,” he said in his nightly video. “And every day of delay, weakness, various disputes or proposals to appease the aggressor at the expense of the victim are new Ukrainians killed. And these are new threats to everyone on our continent. “
Putin said it was “impossible, completely unrealistic in the modern world” to isolate Russia. Speaking on video to members of the Eurasian Economic Forum, which is made up of several former Soviet nations, he said those who tried to do so would “mostly get hurt”, citing broken food supply chains.
Michael Carpenter, the US ambassador to the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe, urged its members to provide Ukraine with what it needs to defend itself against Putin’s “revenge deceptions.”
If Russia achieves “success” in Ukraine, “there would be more horrific reports of leaks, more people forcibly displaced, more summary executions, more torture, more rapes and more looting,” Carpenter told Vienna.
On the battlefield, Russian forces pressed their offensive in various parts of the eastern Donbas region, the Ukrainian army said. That industrial core of coal mines and factories is now the focus of the struggle after Russia suffered a series of setbacks and moved to more limited targets.
“The enemy is assaulting the position of our troops simultaneously in several directions,” said Ukrainian Defense Deputy Minister Hanna Maliar. “We have an extremely difficult and long stage of struggle ahead.”
Kharkiv, Ukraine’s second-largest city, was also bombed again on Thursday. Zelenskyy said at least nine people were killed and 19 were injured. Among the dead was a five-month-old baby and his father, and the mother was in serious condition.
Military officials said Russian forces continued to try to settle in the Sievierodonetsk area, the only part of the Luhansk region in the Donbass under the control of the Ukrainian government.
A senior US defense official said Russia was making gradual progress in the Donbas, with fighting centered on towns and villages as Russian and Ukrainian forces market control over pieces of land. The official, who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss the U.S. military assessment, said those smaller artillery duels could be lengthened.
Russia has 110 battalion tactical groups, each with between 800 and 1,000 troops, committed to Ukraine, which account for 80 percent of Moscow’s total strength, the official said, adding that it had lost 1,000 tanks and three dozen fighter jets and other fixed wing aircraft.
Zelenskyy called on the West to send multiple rocket launch systems to Ukraine as soon as possible to give it a chance to fight the Russian offensive in the Donbas.
In other developments:
– In the northwestern city of Kotelva, two Russian soldiers accused of war crimes pleaded guilty to bombing civilian infrastructure with a multiple rocket launcher. Alexander Ivanov and Alexander Bobykin face up to 12 years in prison; the defense called for eight, saying they were following orders. Bobykin said, “I am sorry for the actions taken by our troops.”
– In the devastated port city of Mariupol, Russia began broadcasting state television news about a week after the Russian military declared that it had “completely liberated” the city.
– A Russian-backed separatist leader suggested there may be more Ukrainian fighters hiding in Mariupol’s vast Azovstal steel plant, which for weeks was the city’s last stronghold of resistance. The Russian military says 2,439 fighters surrendered at the plant last week. Separatist leader Denis Pushilin said there could be more hidden, lost or left behind, adding that “some have already been found” and captured.
– Alexander Lukashenko, the leader of the Russian ally Belarus, said he was sending troops to the border with Ukraine, raising the possibility of accepting wider participation in the war. Belarus allowed Russian troops to invade Ukraine from its ground, but has not been involved in ground operations.
– The Pentagon said that a US military official has returned to Ukraine while the US reopens its embassy in Kyiv. But Pentagon spokesman John Kirby said the colonel is there for diplomatic work and that no other US troops are entering Ukraine at this time.
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Becatoros reported from Kramatorsk, Ukraine. Associated Press writers Andre Rosa in Kharkiv, Ukraine, and Lolita C. Baldor in Washington contributed.
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