In addition to being the world’s leading supplier of wheat, Russia is also a major exporter of fertilizers and Ukraine a major producer of corn and sunflower oil.
An agreement is considered vital for food security, especially among developing nations, and for the stabilization of markets.
But Guterres warned that there is still “a long way to go” before there are peace talks to end the war.
Several Ukrainian cities have reported heavy Russian bombing and Ukraine’s Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba has been underestimated with the prospects for peace.
Ukrainian officials said there had been sustained Russian bombing in the Donetsk province, which Moscow intends to capture to complete the capture of the industrialized Donbas region in eastern Ukraine.
Russian media reported that the Ukrainian armed forces launched a new missile attack on an area of Kherson-controlled southern Kherson of strategic importance, which Kyiv hopes to recover.
A Russian military robotic vehicle detonates a landmine on a mine clearance mission along the high-voltage line in Mariupol. Credit: AP
The RIA news agency quoted that the administration of the Kherson region, backed by Russia, said that Russian air defenses shot down five missiles fired at the city of New Kakhovka, while the remains of two of the missiles went fall near a factory.
“According to preliminary information, there has been another strike at a Russian ammunition plant in Sokol,” Serhiy Khlan, an adviser to the Ukrainian head of Kherson province, wrote on Facebook.
A separate attack on Tuesday in New Kakhovka killed 52 people, the Ukrainian army reported. The deputy head of the Moscow-designated Kherson region said two people died, seven were missing and 90 were injured.
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On Wednesday, TASS quoted a separatist official, Vitaly Kiselyov, as saying Russian and proxy forces had entered the city of Siversk in Donetsk province and could catch it in a couple of days.
Russia had not carried out any new assaults on the front line that included Siversk, but that the city had been fired upon by artillery, Ukrainian military forces said.
Reuters was unable to independently verify battlefield accounts.
Possible progress
Russia’s invasion of Ukraine on February 24 caused the largest conflict in Europe since 1945. Millions have fled and thousands have died, while cities have been reduced to rubble and fears of further conflict wide in the West have grown.
The Kremlin says it is involved in a “special military operation” to demilitarize and “de-Nazize” Ukraine. Both Kyiv and Western nations say this is a pretext for an unprovoked war of aggression.
Ukraine and the West have accused Russia of exacerbating the global food crisis and fueling inflation.
Moscow has blamed Ukraine, saying it refuses to withdraw the mines it scattered along its coast to protect itself from Russia’s attack and threatening navigation.
The Kremlin also says Western sanctions make it difficult for Russia to finance and secure its own shipping services.
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The Russian news agency Interfax quoted Pyotr Ilyichev, head of the department of international organizations of Russia’s Foreign Ministry, as saying that Russia wanted to control and inspect the same grain vessels to rule out arms smuggling.
Before progress was announced, diplomats said the plan under discussion included Ukrainian vessels guiding grain vessels in and out of mined port waters; Russia accepting a truce while shipments move; and Turkey, with United Nations support, inspecting ships to alleviate Russian fears of arms smuggling.
RIA quoted an unnamed diplomatic source as saying Russia’s demands included the removal of “barriers to exports” created by sanctions, citing “areas of shipping insurance, logistics, transportation services and operations.” banking “.
A senior UN official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said most of the points of contention in talks to resume Ukraine’s exports to the Black Sea had been overcome, and described the talks in Istanbul as a “advance.”
Reuters
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