Closing summary
Turkey’s president, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, urged Vladimir Putin, the Russian president, to reopen talks on the failed deal he brokered last summer to safeguard Ukrainian grain exports to the world.
Russia failed to hit its targets in Kyiv but has successfully struck ports in the Odesa region with suicide drones in the latest wave of night-time strikes to follow the Kremlin’s decision to pull out of a UN-backed deal safeguarding the world’s food supply.
Operations were suspended at Ukraine’s Izmail port on the Danube after one of Russia’s drone strikes, according to industry sources. The port, across the river from Nato-member Romania, has served as the main alternative route out of Ukraine for grain exports since Russia reintroduced its de facto blockade of Ukraine’s Black Sea ports in mid-July.
Ukraine’s deputy prime minister for reconstruction, Oleksandr Kubrakov, reportedly said that the attacks damaged 40,000 tonnes of food products.
The Polish deputy foreign minister, Pawel Jabłoński, said relations with Ukraine have “not been the best” lately after an official was criticised by Kyiv after suggesting the embattled nation had been ungrateful despite the level of support it had received.
Poland adopted an amended version of a panel to probe “Russian influence”, after an avalanche of EU and US criticism of the move, widely seen as targeting the opposition.
Local militia groups in two Russian regions bordering Ukraine were provided with weapons to defend their territory from Ukrainian attacks, according to local officials.
Pope Francis urged Europe to find “courageous courses of peace” to end the war in Ukraine. “Where are you sailing, if you are not showing the world paths of peace, creative ways for bringing an end to the war in Ukraine?” he said.
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Brazil’s president, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, has said that his country is working for peace in Ukraine, but that neither Ukraine’s leader nor Russia’s were prepared to talk peace.
“Neither Putin nor Zelenskiy are ready,” Lula told a news conference, adding that peace proposals he is seeking with other countries will be ready when Russia and Ukraine are willing to negotiate. “Brazil’s role is to try to arrive at a peace proposal together with others for when both countries want it.”
Lula has tried to form a group of neutral countries to get peace talks going. He has been criticised for saying that Ukraine and Russia are equally responsible for the war.
The left-wing president, who was elected last year for a third non-consecutive term, criticised how western powers had backed Ukraine. “The UN security council has not worked. United States invaded Iraq, France and England invaded Libya, now Russia. And everyone has veto power,” he stated.
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