The Russian Navy is determined – and succeeds – in demonstrating its naval strength. Just today it carried out missile firing exercises in the Black Sea. He did it days after the kremlin warn that it will consider ships sailing to Ukraine as possible military targets.
The Black Sea Fleet “carried out live firing of anti-ship cruise missiles at a target ship at the combat training ground in the northwestern part of the Black Sea,” the Defense Ministry said in a statement on Telegram. “The target ship was destroyed as a result of a missile strike.”
Army ships and planes trained “actions to isolate the area temporarily closed to navigation and also carried out a series of measures to stop the attacking ship,” it added.
In addition, the Russian state news agency TASS reported that Russian and Chinese naval forces conducted joint exercises in the Sea of Japan in which they “destroyed a false floating mine and practiced repelling a small high-speed target attack.”
After ending a deal on Monday facilitating the maritime export of grain from Ukraine’s Black Sea ports, the Kremlin said on Wednesday it would consider cargo ships bound for Ukraine as potential military targets.
He announced that he was closing traffic in parts of the northwest and southeast of this sea that bathes both countries at war
He also announced that he was closing traffic in parts of the northwest and southeast of this sea that bathes both countries at war.
In a similar message, Ukraine announced that it was banning navigation in “the northeastern part of the Black Sea and in the Kerch Strait” near the Crimean peninsula.
After the end of the agreement, kyiv said it was prepared to continue exporting grain by sea and called on the UN and neighboring countries to establish a safe corridor for navigation.
cluster bombs
On the front lines, Ukrainian forces began using US-supplied cluster bombs to try to speed up a slow counteroffensive launched by kyiv a month ago, the White House said.
For the first time, the United States this month supplied kyiv with these controversial weapons, which disperse hundreds of small explosives and are banned in several countries because of the threat they pose to civilians.
Ukrainian troops began using these munitions “in the past week or so,” the White House National Security Council spokesman said Thursday. John Kirby.
“They are using them properly, they are using them effectively and they are having an impact on Russia’s defensive formations and maneuvers,” he said.
Since June, kyiv has been trying to recapture large parts of territory in southern and eastern Ukraine still occupied by Russia, but the counteroffensive seems to have stalled on large sections of the front. A senior advisor to the Ukrainian presidency acknowledged that this operation will be “long and difficult.”
The broken grain output pact
This counteroffensive overlaps with the hostilities unleashed on the shores of the Black Sea since the end of the grain agreement, with Russian attacks on Ukrainian ports and actions by Kiev against the annexed Crimean peninsula.
In the early hours of Thursday, Russia attacked for the third consecutive day the cities of Odessa and Mykolaiv, causing the death of at least three people and injuring about twenty, local authorities said.
Ukraine accuses Russia of deliberately attacking its port infrastructure with the aim of preventing any possible restart of its grain exports.
The UN Secretary General also condemned the attacks. Antonio Guterreswho warned that they are having a “negative effect on world wheat and corn prices.”
The start of the Russian offensive in February 2022 led to the blockade of Ukrainian ports on the Black Sea until an agreement mediated by the Russian Federation was signed in July last year. Türkiye and the UN which was extended twice.
The pact allowed the export of more than 32 million tons of grainswhich relieved countries suffering from food shortages, such as Afghanistan, Sudan and Yemen.
But on Monday the Kremlin announced it was withdrawing from the deal after months of complaining about breaching a provision in the deal to export its products. agricultural and fertilizer.
