Russia on Saturday suspended participation in a UN-brokered Black Sea grain deal after what it said was a major Ukrainian drone attack on its fleet in Crimea, dealing a blow to efforts to ease the global food crisis. Electricity is being restored in Ukraine after coordinated Russian attacks on power plants, but emergency shutdowns may still be necessary, President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said on Saturday.

Russian military learns to use grenade-carrying drone – Ukraine WarPhoto: Pavlo Lviv / Sputnik / Profimedia

A brief summary of recent events:

  • The Black Sea Fleet in Sevastopol was attacked by naval drones
  • The governor of Sevastopol, Mykhailo Razvozhaev, announced the closure of all surveillance cameras in the city, saying that Saturday’s attack was “the most massive since the beginning of the special operation,” Russian news agency TASS reported. The restriction comes in the context of the fact that the Russian-imposed authorities claim that nothing in the city was damaged.
  • The Russian government has written to the United Nations that it is indefinitely suspending the Black Sea Grain Agreement, which allowed the export of vital Ukrainian food products. Moscow has also invited a meeting of the UN Security Council to be held in New York on Monday. US President Joe Biden called Russia’s actions scandalous.
  • The UN Secretary General has called on Russia and Ukraine to restore the grain agreement, which led to the export of more than 8 million tons of grain from Ukraine and led to lower world food prices. The agreement between Ukraine and Russia was supposed to expire on November 19.
  • Britain’s Ministry of Defense said the Russian Ministry of Defense was “issuing false claims of an epic scale” after Moscow accused the British navy of a “terrorist attack” on the Nord Stream gas pipelines and said British “experts” had helped in the drone attack on Sevastopol .
  • Ukraine’s electricity supply is being restored after a coordinated Russian attack on power plants, but emergency shutdowns may still be necessary, Volodymyr Zelenskyi said.
  • The European Union has frozen about 17 billion euros worth of Russian assets since Moscow invaded Ukraine, European Justice Commissioner Didier Reynders said.
  • More than 100 prisoners of war were exchanged between Russia and Ukraine. On Saturday, the Ministry of Defense of Russia reported that Ukraine handed over 50 prisoners of war as a result of the negotiations. The Telegram account of the Ukrainian Armed Forces reported that during another “prisoner exchange” “52 Ukrainians returned home.”
  • Advisor to the President of Ukraine Mykhailo Podolyak expressed skepticism about Elon Musk’s takeover of Twitter. The billionaire drew the ire of Kyiv and the praise of Moscow this month when he posted a poll on Twitter in which he called on Ukraine to permanently hand over Crimea to Russia, hold UN-sponsored referendums on the fate of Russian-controlled territories and Ukraine to accept neutrality.
  • Russian-backed forces say they have completed the withdrawal of civilians from the key southern Ukrainian city of Kherson. Before the war, this city had about 288,000 inhabitants and was one of the first to fall under the blows of Moscow troops after the February invasion. A Russian-appointed official in Kherson said at least 70,000 people had fled their homes during the week.
  • The evacuation of the population and the removal of Potemkin’s remains from Kherson precedes Russia’s intention to speed up its withdrawal from the area, according to an assessment by the UK Ministry of Defense on Saturday morning.

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Saturday’s events were broadcast LIVE on HotNews.ro