Grain export ship successfully leaves south port of Odesa
Ukraine exported over 26,000 tons of corn after the United Nations and Turkey brokered deal in an effort to stabilize global food prices.
Claire Hardwick, USA TODAY
New satellite images appeared to show that at least seven fighter planes at a Russian base in Crimea had blown up, despite Russian claims that no aircraft were damaged in explosions this week.
The images released Wednesday by Planet Labs PBC, a U.S. Earth imaging company, also showed charred grassland and several craters near the tarmac.
The Ukrainian air force said Wednesday that nine Russian warplanes were destroyed Tuesday in multiple massive explosions that also killed one person and wounded 14 others. Russia sought to downplay the blasts and said several munitions at the base caught fire and blew up.
But Oleksiy Arestovych, Ukrainian presidential adviser, said that the explosions were either caused by Ukrainian-made long-range weapons or by Ukrainian guerrillas operating in Crimea. Ukraine has stopped short of publicly claiming responsibility for the explosions, which also knocked out windows, damaged nearby apartment buildings and sent tourists fleeing.
Latest developments:
►Russian journalist Marina Ovsyannikova, who was fined three times for criticizing the war in Ukraine, has now been detained and faces 10 years in prison if convicted, her lawyer said. Ovsyannikova’s home was raided and she was taken for questioning Wednesday.
►The European Union’s ban on Russian coal imports went into effect Thursday as part of the fifth package of EU sanctions against Russia. A British defense intelligence update said “the increasing effect of Western sanctions” have significantly strained Russia’s military industrial complex.
►McDonald’s will begin reopening restaurants in Ukraine in the coming months after the restaurant chain closed its 109 Ukrainian locations after the Russian invasion. The company has continued to pay its over 10,000 employees in Ukraine.
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GRAPHICS: Mapping and tracking Russia’s invasion of Ukraine
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy on Thursday urged Western nations to provide more money and support to troops fighting in Ukraine. In an address at a donor conference held in Denmark, he asked for more “armaments, munitions for our defense.”
“The sooner we stop Russia, the sooner we can feel safe,” Zelenskyy said.
Fighter planes are especially needed, Ukrainian Defense Minister Oleksii Reznikov told reporters Thursday.
Meanwhile, British Defense Secretary Ben Wallace announced Britain will send more multiple launch rocket systems and guided missiles. Ahead of the conference, the Danish government said it would give Ukraine an extra $113 million.
Fighting around a Ukrainian nuclear power plant, the largest in Europe, has stoked fears of an international nuclear disaster, and global leaders are voicing concerns.
Foreign ministers from the Group of Seven, an intergovernmental political forum of leading industrialized countries, demanded Wednesday that Russia return control of the plant to Ukraine, Reuters reported.
Russian troops took over the Zaporizhzhia plant in southern Ukraine, one of the 10 largest nuclear plants in the world, shortly after invading the country in February. Before the war, the plant accounted for about half the electricity generated by nuclear power in Ukraine.
Ukrainian operators have been kept in place to run the plant. But conflict around the facility has fueled fears of nuclear disaster similar to that in Chernobyl, which saw the world’s worst nuclear accident in 1986.
Rafael Mariano Grossi, director-general of the International Atomic Energy Agency, told The Associated Press last week that the conflict near the Zaporizhzhia plant “is completely out of control” as he pleaded with Russia and Ukraine to allow inspectors to visit the site. Grossi said the supply chain for equipment to the plant has been interrupted, and there have been reports of violence between Russian troops and Ukrainian staff members.
“What is at stake is extremely serious and extremely grave and dangerous,” Grossi said.
Contributing: The Associated Press
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