Lithuania on Monday urged the European Union to use Baltic ports to export Ukrainian grain after Moscow declined to renew a 2022 deal on their safe passage through the Black Sea.

Russia has said it is ready to return to the agreement, which has allowed the export of nearly 33 million tons of grain from Ukrainian ports, if its demands are met “in their totality.”

Moscow says its own deliveries of agricultural products and fertilizers under the deal brokered by the United Nations and Turkey were hampered by Western sanctions.

A letter by three Lithuanian ministers to EU commissioners said Baltic ports could “serve as a reliable alternative for transiting Ukrainian products, including cereals.”

The letter, seen by AFP, said Baltic ports could help transport 25 million tons of grain annually.

It also asked the EU to cut red tape on Ukraine’s border with Poland, a member of the bloc.

Last week, Ukraine’s European neighbors urged the EU to extend a grain import ban until the end of the year, amid fears local farmers would be undercut by diverted Ukrainian supplies.

In June, Brussels agreed to allow Poland, Bulgaria, Hungary, Slovakia and Romania to restrict imports of grain from Ukraine through September.

Ukraine has accused Russia of stepping up attacks on ports, grain supplies and infrastructure vital to grain exports after refusing to renew the agreement.
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President Volodymyr Zelenskyy called on the European Union on Monday to ensure that an “unacceptable and clearly non-European” ban on Ukrainian grain imports to five countries is lifted by a mid-September deadline.

The five central European countries want the EU ban extended at least until the end of the year. The ban is set to expire on September 15.

In his nightly video address delivered after a meeting with government officials, Zelenskyy said there could be no question of extending the restrictions beyond the deadline.

“We believe that the European side will fulfill its obligations regarding this date, when the temporary restrictions will cease to apply,” Zelenskyy said. “Any extension of these restrictions is entirely unacceptable and clearly un-European. Europe has the institutional capacity to act more rationally than closing this or that border to this or that type of good.”

Ukraine, he said, was “actively working with everyone to find a solution that is in line with the spirit of our Europe.”

The president had earlier written on the Telegram messaging app that any extension was “unacceptable in any form.”

The EU in May allowed Bulgaria, Hungary, Poland, Romania and Slovakia to ban domestic sales of Ukrainian wheat, maize, rapeseed and sunflower seeds, while permitting transit of such cargoes for export elsewhere.

The countries include some of Kyiv’s staunchest diplomatic supporters in its war against Moscow, but they say inflows of Ukrainian grain have hurt their farming sectors.

Poland will not lift the ban on September 15 even if the EU does not agree on its extension, its prime minister said last week.
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Human Rights Watch said in a statement Monday that Mali’s armed forces and “apparently” the Wagner Group mercenaries “have summarily executed and forcibly disappeared several dozen civilians in Mali’s cental region since December 2022.”

Mali’s forces and the Wagner Group have also “destroyed and looted civilian property and allegedly tortured detainees in an army camp,” according to HRW.

The rights group said it has interviewed 40 people who know about the incidents, including “20 witnesses of abuses, three family members of victims, two community leaders, five Malian civil society activists, eight representatives of international organizations, and two Sahel political analysts.

HRW said it has also “reviewed a video showing evidence of abuses by Malian soldiers and associated foreign forces.”

Malian Foreign Minister Aodoulaye Diop urged the U.N. Security Council to withdraw the U.N. peacekeeping force in Mali or MINUSMA “without delay” due to a confidence crisis between Malian officials and the 15,000 members of MINUSMA.

Malian Foreign Minister Aodoulaye Diop urged the U.N. Security Council to withdraw the U.N. peacekeeping force in Mali or MINUSMA “without delay” due to a confidence crisis between Malian officials and the 15,000 members of MINUSMA.

The Security Council has decided to end MINUSMA’s presence in Mali, but its personnel will remain there until December 31.

With the upcoming end to MINUSMA’s presence in Mali, Carine Kaneza Nantulya, HRW deputy Africa director, said, “The African Union and the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) should express their concerns about grave abuses by the Malian armed forces and allied apparent Wagner Group fighters and increase pressure on the Malian authorities to end these violations and hold those responsible to account.”
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Latest developments

A previously announced meeting of a new NATO-Ukraine Council, expected to address Black Sea security, has been scheduled for Wednesday, President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said in his nightly video address.





Russian President Vladimir Putin said his country is capable of replacing Ukrainian grain exports to Africa after Russia left a deal allowing for safe shipments from Ukraine through the Black Sea amid Russia’s invasion.

 

Russia reported Ukrainian drone attacks Monday targeting Moscow and Russia-occupied Crimea, while Ukraine said Russia carried out its latest aerial attack on the southern port of Odesa. 

Russia’s military said it downed the two drones that attacked Moscow.  The city’s mayor, Sergei Sobyanin, said two non-residential buildings were damaged, but that there were no reports of casualties.  

Russian news agencies said fragments from a drone were found in the Komsomolsky area, near Russia’s defense ministry.  

In Crimea, the Russia-installed governor said a Ukrainian drone strike hit an ammunition depot, while air defenses downed 11 drones. 

Meanwhile, Ukraine’s military said Russia destroyed a grain depot and injured four workers in the latest Russian attack on port infrastructure in Odesa. 

Ukraine’s southern military command said it shot down three Russian drones that were part of Monday’s attacks. 

Russia has hit Odesa multiple times in the week since it announced it was leaving the Black Sea Grain Initiative that allowed for the safe shipment of grain from Ukrainian ports through the Black Sea. 

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy used part of his nightly address Sunday to decry Russian attacks on the city of Odesa, and in particular its historic center, one of UNESCO’s world heritage sites.  

Zelenskyy vowed to retaliate, saying, “They [Russia] will definitely feel this.”    

“The target of all these missiles is not just cities, villages or people. Their target is humanity and the foundations of our entire European culture,” Zelenskyy said Sunday in his nightly video address. “Last night, a Russian missile — it was an X-22, an anti-ship missile — hit the altar of the Spaso-Preobrazhensky Cathedral in Odesa. … One of the most valuable cathedrals in Ukraine.”   

Russian airstrikes damaged the historic Transfiguration Cathedral, as the site is also known, early Sunday.  

Father Myroslav, the assistant rector of the cathedral, said there was extensive damage inside.

“There was a direct hit to the cathedral; it completely damaged three altars,” he said.

Members of the clergy pulled icons from the rubble inside the cathedral. Mosaics were smashed. A security guard and clergymen were inside when the strike hit, but they survived.

The destruction of the historic monument has caused outrage and Zelenskyy pledged to restore the historic church.

UNESCO issued a statement “strongly” condemning the attack. European Union foreign policy chief Josep Borrell condemned the strike as a “new war crime.”

The first and foremost church in the city of Odesa was founded in 1794 during the Russian empire. It was demolished under Stalin in 1936. Its rebuilding commenced in 1999 after the dissolution of the Soviet Union and it was consecrated in 2003.

Blue Shield sites damaged

Separately, “a preliminary assessment in Odesa has revealed damage to several museums inside the World Heritage property, including the Odesa Archaeological Museum, the Odesa Maritime Museum and the Odesa Literature Museum. They had all been marked by UNESCO and local authorities with the Blue Shield, the distinctive emblem of the 1954 Hague Convention,” the UNESCO statement said.

Russia’s defense ministry claimed it struck areas that were suspected of being sites of terrorist acts but denied it had struck the cathedral and said the building had probably been hit by a Ukrainian anti-aircraft missile.

The airstrikes killed two people and wounded at least 19 others, including children.

Residents said the missiles hit only residential areas and small businesses.

Ukraine counteroffensive

U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken told CNN Sunday that while Ukraine’s counteroffensive is going more slowly than originally hoped for, Ukrainian forces had reconquered half the territory that Russia had initially occupied when it invaded.

“It’s already taken back about 50% of what was initially seized,” Blinken said. “These are still relatively early days of the counteroffensive. It is tough.”

“It will not play out over the next week or two. We’re still looking I think at several months,” he said, as Ukrainian troops struggled to breach heavily entrenched Russian positions in the country’s south and east.

Blinken remarked that Russia has failed as far as what it was aiming to achieve when it invaded Ukraine.

“The objective was to erase Ukraine from the map, to eliminate its independence, its sovereignty, to subsume it into Russia. That failed a long time ago. Now Ukraine is in a battle to get back more of the land that Russia seized from it,” Blinken said.

Earlier, Russian President Vladimir Putin said that Ukraine’s counteroffensive “has failed.”

While visiting St. Petersburg, Belarusian leader Alexander Lukashenko, a key Putin ally, said Sunday, “There is no counteroffensive.”

Putin replied: “It exists, but it has failed.”

Some information was provided by The Associated Press, Agence France-Presse and Reuters.
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No clear winner emerged in a nail-biting finish to Spain’s election on Sunday as the right failed to fulfill predictions of a victory big enough to push Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez from power. 

The two leading parties will seek to negotiate coalition deals in pursuit of a governing majority, but analysts warned the process could end in a hung parliament and another election. 

With 100% of votes counted by 1:30 a.m. on Monday (2330 GMT), the opposition center-right People’s Party (PP) had 136 seats in parliament while Sanchez ruling Socialists (PSOE) had 122 seats. 

Both were short of the 176 seats needed to govern. But the Socialists performed better than forecast while the PP failed to clinch a predicted clear majority, injecting drama into the vote counting.

The parties with the greatest potential to be kingmakers were nearly even with far-right Vox on 33 and far-left Sumar on 31 seats. 

The result meant that Sanchez went from likely outgoing premier to a potential contender to form another government. It also all but torpedoed the prospect of a far-right party taking part in another European government as pollsters had projected with a PP and Vox coalition. 

The Teneo advisory firm put Sanchez’ odds of forming a coalition far above those of PP leader Alberto Nunez Feijoo, with a 45% probability he could negotiate a deal with far-left Sumar and smaller parties. But it assigned the same percentage probability to a new election being required. 

Repercussions of uncertainty

The lack of a clear result cast a shadow on Spain’s current presidency of the European Union council and risked unsettling markets. 

Speaking to jubilant supporters outside the PSOE’s central Madrid headquarters late on Sunday, Sanchez said Spaniards had rejected the “backward-looking bloc, which proposed a total repeal of all the progress we have made over the last four years.” 

In a more muted address at the PP headquarters across town, Feijoo insisted his party had won the election and would seek to avoid uncertainty by speaking to all willing parties to form a government. Vox leader Santiago Abascal said Sanchez could block any attempt by the right to form a government. 

King Felipe VI will invite Feijoo, the top vote winner, to try to secure the prime ministership. In a similar situation in 2015, PP leader Mariano Rajoy declined the king’s invitation, saying he could not muster the support. 

If Feijoo declines, the king may turn to Sanchez with the same request. The law does not set a deadline for the process but if no candidate secures a majority within two months of the first vote on the prime minister, new elections must be held. 

Sanchez called a surprise snap election after the left took a drubbing in local elections in May. 

Sunday’s vote coincided with what would have been many Spaniards’ summer holidays and one of the hottest months in the sunbaked nation. Voters showed up in swimsuits and used ballots as fans while polling stations brought in air conditioners or moved voting tables outside. 

Turnout was up, at 70.40% compared to 66.23% in the last election in 2019. 

Polls in the weeks leading up to voting — and even those released as the final ballot box was sealed at 9 p.m. — predicted a working majority for Feijoo’s PP and Vox. 

Ignacio Jurado, political science professor at Madrid’s Carlos III University, blamed the PP’s negative campaign against Sanchez for a drop in support and said Sanchez’s abrupt move in calling snap elections might still pay off. 

“The PP needed something more, especially because Vox is a hindrance,” he said. 

‘This isn’t looking good’

As the results rolled in on Sunday night, a mood of jubilation outside the PP headquarters turned anxious as the gap between the PP and PSOE remained stubbornly slim. 

Galo Contreras, PP mayor of a town in the northern Burgos province, said he was not surprised the race was so close given missteps by the PP in the last week.

Each seat gained for the PP was loudly celebrated by the crowd of supporters. But one admitted as the night went on: “This isn’t looking good.” 

Meanwhile, at the Socialists’ headquarters, some senior officials were smiling. A supporter in the corridor said gleefully: “We were dead but we’re now alive.” 

Feijoo could try to persuade smaller parties to back a PP-Vox coalition. But many appear reluctant to support the ascent of a far-right party into power for the first time since the four-decade rule of dictator Francisco Franco, who died in 1975. 

Sanchez has more options for negotiations but may still struggle to cobble together a majority, with potential allies looking for concessions in return for their support. 

In the present scenario, Sanchez’s PSOE would rely heavily on Catalan separatist parties Junts and ERC or Basque separatists EH Bildu. 

Junts’ main candidate recently said the party would seek a new vote on Catalan independence in return for coalition support, while the region’s former leader, Carles Puigdemont, has said he would support neither Sanchez nor Feijoo. 

Jose Ignacio Torreblanca, director of the Madrid office of the European Council on Foreign Relations, said Spain was now faced with “a catastrophic tie.”
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