The First shipment of Ukraine Grain is traveling the Black Sea to Turkey….
That will make the Ukraine and Turkey some money and will help feed people around the world….
This while Russia and the Ukraine keep squaring off against each other in the South and East of the country….
And Russia keeps dropping missle’s on civilian area’s….
A ship carrying grain left the Ukrainian port of Odessa for the first time since Russia’s invasion under a U.N.-backed deal meant to ease the global food crisis.
Here’s the latest on the war and its ripple effects across the world.
Key developments
- The cargo vessel is carrying more than 28,000 tons of corn. It is expected to arrive in Turkish territorial waters Tuesday, en route to Lebanon. A Russian missile strike on Odessa a day after a U.N.-brokered grain-export deal was signed in late July had raised fears that the arrangement would crumble.
- The key Black Sea port of Mykolaiv was hit over the weekend by “one of the most brutal shellings”since the war began, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said after dozens of Russian rockets destroyed homes, schools and infrastructure. Among those killed in the city was one of Ukraine’s richest business executives, who founded an agriculture company that helped facilitate the country’s grain exports.
- Finger-pointing continues over an attack on a detention center in Russian-occupied Donetsk that killed 50 Ukrainian prisoners. Russia claimed that it invited international monitors to investigate the Olenivka prison site, but the International Committee of the Red Cross said its request to do so has not been granted. “Granting ICRC access to POWs is an obligation of parties to conflict under the Geneva Conventions,” it tweeted.
- The European Commission on Monday announced that $1 billion in financial aid for Ukraine, out of a package totaling $9 billion, will be delivered by Tuesday.
Battlefield updates
- Ukraine on Monday confirmed the delivery of precision Multiple Launch Rocket Systems (MLRS) from Germany, bolstering a growing arsenal of such systems that have been credited with the destruction of dozens of strategically important Russian targets, The Washington Post’s Rick Noack reports. German Defense Minister Christine Lambrecht recently said an initial delivery of German Gepard antiaircraft tanks had arrived in Ukraine, and that Germany was sending more self-propelled howitzers than initially planned. Several German IRIS-T air defense systems are also slated for delivery in autumn.
- Russia is making slow progress in the Donbas region of eastern Ukraine, probably a result of redirecting troops to southern Ukraine, Britain’s Defense Ministry said in its latest intelligence update Monday. It added that Russian President Vladimir Putin’s forces were “probably adjusting” operations after failing to make a significant breakthrough in recent months.
- Ukraine reports casualties following a strike by Russian forces in Kharkiv. Governor Oleh Synyehubov confirmed the attack on Telegram, saying that at least two people were injured in shelling that targeted Kharkiv’s Saltivskyi District early Monday.
- Overnight Russian shelling destroyed part of a trauma center in Mykolaiv, Mayor Oleksandr Senkevych said Monday as he posted photos purporting to show the scale of destruction on his official Telegram channel. Recent Russian attacks have also obliterated homes and killed civilians, Ukrainian officials said.
Update….
The U.S. will send Ukraine thousands more 155mm howitzer shells and HIMARS rockets in a new package of military aid, the White House announced Monday. The $550 million package, which includes 75,000 155mm rounds, will bring the total amount of military aid the Biden administration has provided Ukraine to $8.8 billion.
Ukrainian officials told CNN on Monday that the longer-range HIMARS have allowed them to hit Russian weapons storage sites in Kherson. The White House said the decision to provide additional HIMARS ammunition followed meetings between the Pentagon officials and their Ukrainian counterparts.
A senior defense official on Friday told reporters the Ukrainians were able to gain ground against the Russians in Kherson and have used HIMARS to strike Russian surface-to-air missile sites.
The $550 million announcement brings the total aid to Ukraine from the Biden administration to $8.8 billion, although some major systems that were previously announced, such as the NASAMS advanced anti-aircraft missile systems are still being procured and have not been delivered to Ukraine…
image…AP