Ukraine war: Grain depots in Ukraine hit again, rouble stabilises

Grain terminals in Ukraine are hit

Russia pounded grain terminals in Ukraine’s southern Odesa area on Wednesday, native officers stated.

They hit storage services and ports alongside the Danube River that Kyiv has more and more used for grain transport to Europe after Moscow broke off a wartime export deal by way of the Black Sea.

At the identical time, a loaded container ship caught on the port of Odesa since Russia’s full-scale invasion greater than 17 months in the past set sail and was heading by way of the Black Sea to the Bosporus alongside a short lived hall established by Ukraine for service provider delivery.

Ukraine’s financial system, crunched by the struggle, is closely depending on farming. Its agricultural exports, like these of Russia, are additionally essential for world provides of wheat, barley, sunflower oil and different meals that creating nations depend on.

After the Kremlin tore up a month in the past an settlement brokered final summer season by the UN and Turkey to make sure protected Ukraine grain exports by way of the Black Sea, Kyiv has sought to reroute transport by way of the Danube and highway and rail hyperlinks into Europe.

However, transport prices that method are a lot larger, some European nations have baulked on the penalties for native grain costs, and the Danube ports can’t deal with the identical quantity as seaports.

Odesa governor Oleh Kiper stated the first targets of Russia’s in a single day drone bombardment had been port terminals and grain silos, together with on the ports in the Danube delta. Air defences managed to intercept 13 drones over Odesa and Mykolaiv areas, based on the Ukraine Air Force’s morning replace.

Meanwhile, the container ship departing Odesa was the primary vessel to set sail since July 16, based on Oleksandr Kubrakov, Ukraine’s deputy prime minister. It had been caught in Odesa since February 2022.

Russia’s forex steady after financial institution intervention

The rouble was steady on Wednesday, the day after the Russian Central Bank raised its key rate of interest, apprehensive that inflation would rise once more and the nationwide forex would slide.

On the Moscow Stock Exchange in the morning, it value 96.9 roubles to purchase a greenback and 106 roubles to purchase a euro, charges which were steady because the opening of buying and selling.

The announcement of an emergency improve in the primary key price from 8.5% to 12% had already reassured the markets on Tuesday.

However, the scenario earlier than that had develop into very delicate: on Monday, the rouble had continued the free fall it started a number of weeks in the past, buying and selling at greater than 100 to the greenback and 110 to the euro, the primary time this had occurred since March 2022, when the Russian forex collapsed in the wake of the assault on Ukraine.

In a word revealed on Wednesday, analysts at Alfa Bank felt that “it is unlikely that the change in the key rate will have a lasting impact on the rouble rate”, given the “limited” volumes presently being traded on the Russian overseas change market.

Kyiv says it has recapturedthe village of Urozhaine village

Ukraine stated on Wednesday it had retaken the village of Urozhaine on the southern entrance, in the Donetsk area, as a part of its counter-offensive towards Russia.

“Urozhaine has been released. Our defenders are established nearby. The offensive continues” in the area, stated the Deputy Minister of Defence, Hanna Maliar, in a press launch shared on social networks.

Moscow stated on Wednesday it has shot down three Ukrainian drones southwest of the capital, in what was not less than the fifth assault this month over the Kaluga area. 

Ukraine launched the assault at round 5:00 a.m. native time utilizing “three unmanned aerial vehicles on objects in the Kaluga region,” Russia’s defence ministry wrote on Telegram.

“All UAVs were detected and destroyed in a timely manner by Russian air defence systems,” it added.

According to Kaluga’s governor Vladislav Shapsha, there have been “no consequences for people and infrastructure,” as he wrote on Telegram.

Zelenskyy meets troops in the Zaporizhzhia area

Ukraine’s president Volodymyr Zelenskyy met with Ukrainian troops and navy commanders engaged in the counter-offensive towards the Russian forces in the southeastern area of Zaporizhzhia on Tuesday.

“Today I continue to visit our combat brigades. Yesterday we were in the Donetsk region, and today, various districts of the Zaporizhzhia region, the territory of the Tavria operational and strategic group of troops,” Zelenskyy stated in a video shared on Telegram.

An official assertion shared by his workplace confirmed that Zelenskyy “visited the locations of the brigades that carry out offensive operations in the Melitopol sector.”

In his video tackle, the Ukrainian president stated he spoke with navy commanders about “the needs of our warriors”, including that the whole lot they talked about might be later shared at a employees assembly.