Russia-Ukraine war: Russia attacks a Ukrainian port before key grain deal talks between Putin and Turkey’s president

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan will meet with Vladimir Putin on Monday in a bid to persuade the Russian leader to rejoin the Black Sea grain deal that Moscow broke off from in July. Photo / AP

Two people were hospitalised following a three-and-half-hour Russian drone barrage on a port in Ukraine’s Odesa region on Sunday, officials said.

The attack on the Reni seaport comes a day before Russian President Vladimir Putin is due to meet with his Turkish counterpart Recep Tayyip Erdogan to discuss the resumption of food shipments from Ukraine under a Black Sea grain agreement that Moscow broke off from in July.

Russian forces fired 25 Iranian-made Shahed drones along the Danube River in the early hours of Sunday, 22 of which were shot down by air defences, the Ukrainian air force said on Telegram.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy ‘s chief of staff, Andriy Yermak, described the assault as part of a Russian drive “to provoke a food crisis and hunger in the world.”

Russia’s Defense Ministry said in a statement that the attack was aimed at fuel storage facilities used to supply military equipment.

Putin and Erdogan’s long-awaited meeting is due to take place in Sochi on Russia’s southwest coast on Monday.

Turkish officials have confirmed that the pair will discuss renewing the Black Sea grain initiative, which the Kremlin pulled out of six weeks ago.

The deal — brokered by the United Nations and Turkey in July 2022 — had allowed nearly 33 million metric tons (36 million tons) of grain and other commodities to leave three Ukrainian ports safely despite Russia’s war.

However, Russia broke away from the agreement after claiming that a parallel deal promising to remove obstacles to Russian exports of food and fertiliser hadn’t been honoured.

Moscow complained that restrictions on shipping and insurance hampered its agricultural trade, even though it has shipped record amounts of wheat since last year.

The Sochi summit follows talks between the Russian and Turkish foreign ministers on Thursday, during which Russia handed over a list of actions that the West would have to take in order for Ukraine’s Black Sea exports to resume.

Erdogan has indicated sympathy with Putin’s position. In July, he said Putin had “certain expectations from Western countries” over the Black Sea deal and that it was “crucial for these countries to take action in this regard.”

Elsewhere in Ukraine, three people were killed in two separate attacks by Russian shelling in the Donetsk area Sunday. An 85-year-old man was named among the victims after being crushed by the rubble of his own home, Ukraine’s Prosecutors’ Office reported.

A 36-year-old man was also killed in another Russian attack on Ukraine’s Kherson region.

Ukrainian prosecutors announced Sunday that they had opened a war crimes investigation into the death of a police officer killed by Russian shelling on the town of Seredyna-Buda on Saturday afternoon.

Two other police officers and one civilian were wounded during the attack, which hit Ukraine’s north-eastern Sumy region.