Four hours later, the two presidents emerged with plans to increase cooperation in the transport, finance and construction sectors, and Vladimir Putin’s thanks to Recep Tayyip Erdogan for Turkey’s role. wake up Allowed Russia to lift ban on Ukrainian grain exports.
On the day three more ships loaded with corn were reported to have departed from Ukrainian ports, Turkey again extended its diplomatic hand to Putin, guaranteeing that the war in Ukraine cannot be won without talks with Moscow.
“The international community cannot end the war in Ukraine by ignoring Russia,” Erdogan’s spokesman Fahrettin Altun was quoted as saying by Reuters.
In a joint statement after the Sochi summit on the Black Sea, the two presidents urged “full implementation of the Istanbul Agreement, including the lifting of restrictions on Russian exports of grain, fertilizers and raw materials.”
“Deliveries have already started, for which I want to thank him, at the same time, he supported the decision not to block the supply of Russian food and fertilizers on international markets,” Putin thanked.
According to the Turkish Defense Ministry, two ships loaded with grain left the port of Chornomorsk this Friday, and another from Odessa, with a total of 58,000 tons of corn. Russian-Ukrainian TreatyMediation between Turkey and the United Nations is underway.
“We hope that the security guarantees of our UN partners and Turkey will continue to work, and food exports from our ports will become stable and predictable for all market participants,” Ukrainian Infrastructure Minister Oleksandr Kubrakov said.
According to information provided by the Ukrainian Ports Authority on Monday, 68 ships with 1.2 million tons were detained in Ukrainian ports, two-thirds of them for food.
According to Russian Deputy Prime Minister Alexander Novak, the Putin-Erdogan meeting decided that part of Turkish payments for Russian gas would be made in rubles, Reuters reported.
Apart from Ukraine, much of the dialogue between the two leaders has focused on Syria, with Turkey and Russia backing different sides of the Syrian conflict. But as geopolitical circumstances have changed, both countries “reaffirm their determination to act in coordination and unity in the fight against terrorist organizations” in Syria, which Ankara’s version defines as Kurdish fighters.
The target is a nuclear power plant
Meanwhile, in Ukraine, an artillery shell hit high-voltage wires at the Zaporizhzhya nuclear power plant, prompting operators to shut down one of the reactors for safety reasons, although no leak was detected.
Ukraine’s state-owned nuclear company Energoatom has blamed Russia for the damage to Europe’s largest nuclear power plant. The Russian administration of the town of Enerhodar, next to the plant, pointed the finger at Ukrainian forces for destroying power lines.
In a statement issued by the nuclear power plant management, the incident has caused a fire and it is necessary to cut off the electricity to protect the proper functioning of the nuclear reactors. The plant’s operators are the same Ukrainians who ran it before Russian soldiers occupied it in March.
