July 19, 2023 at 1:43 a.m. EDT
Residents of the southern Ukrainian port city of Odessa were urged to take shelter early Wednesday as authorities warned of repeated cruise missile launches from the Black Sea. Russia had recently launched a barrage of rockets toward the area in retaliation for Ukraine’s deadly assault on a key bridge in Crimea on Monday.
A spokesperson for the U.N. secretary general said “there are a number of ideas being floated” to help Ukrainian grain reach global markets after Moscow pulled out of the Black Sea Grain Initiative, a deal that allowed millions of tons of essential food products to be exported from Ukraine’s Black Sea ports.
Here’s the latest on the war and its ripple effects across the globe.
Key developments
Traffic has partially resumed on the Crimean Bridge, Russian Deputy Prime Minister Marat Khusnullin said on Telegram, adding that fully restoring the structure could cost roughly between $11 million to $14 million.
U.N. spokesman Stéphane Dujarric said that Secretary General António Guterres would “continue to explore all possible avenues to ensure that Ukrainian grain, Russian grain and Russian fertilizer are out into the global market.” Meanwhile, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky told African media that his country is “not afraid” to continue shipping grain.
Governments around the world, ranging from France and Finland to Kenya and the Africa Union, criticized Russia’s decision to pull out of the grain deal this week. Canada called it the “weaponization of hunger by the Russian Federation.”
Battleground updates
Ukraine’s deputy defense minister Hanna Maliar reported some advances on the battlefield Tuesday, but said Kyiv’s troops “move in extremely difficult conditions.” She also said Russia’s offensive toward the city of Kupyansk in the eastern Kharkiv region has been unsuccessful.
Global impact
President Biden will discuss the repatriation of Ukrainian children with a papal envoy this week in Washington, the White House said. Kyiv estimates that thousands of children have been taken to Russia or Russian-occupied territory.
Russian warships will participate in a joint naval exercise with China in the Sea of Japan, also known as the East Sea, the Kremlin said Tuesday. A group of vessels left the far eastern city of Vladivostok for the exercises, which are set to begin later this month.
From our correspondents
In Central Asia, a hidden pipeline is supplying Russia with banned technology: On the shipping label, Chinese drones were described as heavy-duty crop dusters — a tool used by orchards and large farms. But the identity of the Russian buyer hinted at other possible uses.
The shipment of drones were intercepted by customs officers on the border of Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan during the final leg of their long trek, according to U.S. officials who recounted the event. The episode was unusual, and lauded as a rare victory in a whack-a-mole effort to stop banned hardware from pouring into Russia, Joby Warrick reports.
