Ukraine is hoping that the tempo of its southern counteroffensive will intensify soon, Volodymyr Zelenskiy’s deputy chief of staff said in an interview, after the president announced his most high-profile cabinet shakeup during the war.
“This is not a Hollywood movie, but a very important thing is that it is going on,” Ihor Zhovkva told Bloomberg TV on Monday. Earlier, Zelenskiy announced he would replace Defense Minister Oleksii Reznikov amid public outcry over alleged corruption by subordinates in his ministry.
Romania denied a claim by the Foreign Ministry in Kyiv that Russian drones fell inside the NATO member’s territory and exploded there during a barrage involving dozens of unmanned vehicles targeting grain infrastructure in the region of Odesa overnight.
Following the strikes, Russian President Vladimir Putin told his Turkish counterpart Recep Tayyip Erdogan in Sochi that he was open to negotiations on reopening the UN-brokered deal that allowed Kyiv to export food via the Black Sea and that Moscow abandoned in July.
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Markets
Wheat traders are watching for movement on Black Sea grain exports when Putin and Erdogan meet. Ukraine, meanwhile, is pushing back on an effort by Poland and four other EU countries to extend a ban on its grain. A meeting on the topic is scheduled for Tuesday in Brussels.
(Corrects title of Zhovkva in lead paragraph.)
