Here is the situation as it stands on Sunday, October 30.
Grain deal
- Russia has pulled out of July’s UN-brokered grain deal, which allowed major exporter Ukraine to ship agricultural produce, after what it said was a drone attack on Russian ships in occupied Crimea.
- Russian Ambassador to Washington Anatoly Antonov has slammed the US for not condemning what he said were the “reckless actions by the Kyiv regime” in targeting the port of Sevastopol.
- Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy says Russia is trying to create a famine in Africa, the Middle East and South Asia, calling for a strong response from the United Nations and the Group of 20 major economies.
- Ukraine’s foreign minister Dmytro Kuleba has accused Moscow of using a “false pretext” to suspend its participation in the grain deal, urging “all states to demand Russia to stop its hunger games and recommit to its obligations”.
- US President Joe Biden called the move “purely outrageous”, saying it would increase hunger.
- “Any act by Russia to disrupt these critical grain exports is essentially a statement that people and families around the world should pay more for food or go hungry,” US Secretary of State Antony Blinken said in a statement.
Nord Stream, Crimea
- Russia’s defence ministry has said British navy personnel blew up the Nord Stream gas pipelines last month, a claim that London said was false and designed to distract from Russian military failures in Ukraine.
- Moscow offered no evidence for its claim. The ministry also said “British specialists” directed Ukrainian drone attacks on Russian Black Sea fleet ships in Crimea earlier on Saturday – which it said were largely repelled by Russian forces, with minor damage to a Russian minesweeper.
Diplomacy
- Suspected agents working for Russian President Vladimir Putin hacked British former UK Prime Minister Liz Truss’s personal phone, gaining access to “top-secret details” of negotiations with international allies, the Daily Mail reported on Saturday.
- Russia said the accelerated deployment of modernised US B61 tactical nuclear weapons at NATO bases in Europe would lower the “nuclear threshold” and that Russia would take the move into account in its military planning.
- The head of Germany’s Military Counter-Intelligence Service, Martina Rosenberg, has warned of increasing activity
by adversarial intelligence services.
