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U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres will meet Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky and Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan in Ukraine on Thursday, with grain exports and concerns about the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant to top the agenda. Follow FRANCE 24’s live coverage of the Ukraine crisis. All times are Paris time (GMT+2).
05:00am: Guterres in Lviv ahead of his meeting with Zelensky and Erdogan
UN chief Antonio Guterres will meet the leaders of Ukraine and Turkey in Lviv on Thursday, following a deal reached last month that allowed the resumption of grain exports after Russia’s invasion blocked essential global supplies.
The meeting also comes a day after the head of NATO said it was “urgent” that the UN’s atomic watchdog be allowed to inspect Ukraine’s Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant, where a Russian occupation has sparked concerns of a nuclear accident.
A spokesman for Guterres said that the UN chief, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky and Turkish counterpart Recep Tayyip Erdogan will discuss the grain deal, as well as “the need for a political solution to this conflict”.
He added that he had “no doubt that the issue of the nuclear power plant” would be raised.In his regular nightly address on Wednesday, Zelensky said Guterres had arrived and that the two would “work to get the necessary results for Ukraine”.
Guterres is slated to travel on Friday to Odessa, one of three ports involved in the grain exports deal — hammered out in July under the aegis of the UN with Ankara’s mediation. He will then head to Turkey to visit the Joint Coordination Centre, the body tasked with overseeing the accord.
According to the UN, the first half of August saw 21 freighters authorised to sail under the deal carrying more than 563,000 tonnes of agricultural products, including more than 451,000 tonnes of corn.
The first wartime shipment of UN food aid for Africa reached the Bosphorus Strait on Wednesday carrying 23,000 tonnes of wheat.
9:35pm: Russian strike on Kharkiv kills 6, says mayor
A Russian strike killed at least six people and wounded 16 others in the eastern Ukrainian city of Kharkiv, according to the city’s mayor.
The attack started a fire in an apartment block, Kharkiv Mayor Igor Terekhov said on the Telegram app.
5:11pm: Ukraine buries unidentified victims of Bucha massacre
Unidentified remains of 21 victims of the Bucha massacre were buried Wednesday in a cemetery in the Kyiv satellite town that saw atrocities committed by retreating Russian forces in late March.
Reporting from Bucha, FRANCE 24’s Rob Parsons said the bodies were brought from the Bucha morgue, where they were being held while investigators tried to match the victims’ DNA. “But so far, for these ones at least, that’s proved not possible. Meanwhile each grave is marked with a number, so if investigations into the DNA come up with some kind of answers, the relatives will be notified and they can moved their loved ones to graveyards of their own choice,” explained Parsons.
4:08pm: NATO says ‘urgent’ need to inspect Zaporizhzhia nuclear plant
It is “urgent” that the UN’s atomic watchdog be allowed to inspect the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant in Ukraine that is under Russian military control, NATO chief Jens Stoltenberg said Wednesday.
Russia’s seizure of the plant “poses a serious threat to the safety and the security of this facility (and) raises the risks of a nuclear accident or incident,” he told reporters in Brussels.
“It is urgent to allow the inspection by the International Atomic Energy Agency and to ensure the withdrawal of all Russian forces,” he said.
3:05pm: Russian Black Sea fleet names new commander: state news agency
Russia’s Black Sea fleet based in annexed Crimea has installed a new commander, RIA news agency cited sources as saying a day after Russian military bases on the peninsula were rocked by explosions in the past nine days.
If confirmed, the removal of the previous commander Igor Osipov would mark the most prominent sacking of a military official in the nearly six months since Russia launched its war on Ukraine, in which it has suffered heavy losses in men and equipment.
State-owned RIA cited the sources as saying the new chief, Viktor Sokolov, was introduced to members of the fleet’s military council in the port of Sevastopol.
12:25pm: Russia says it has ‘neutralised’ Islamist cell in Crimea
The top official in Russian-annexed Crimea has said Russia’s FSB security service has broken up what he described as a six-person terrorist cell of a banned Islamist group, a day after explosions rocked one of Russia’s military bases there.
“All of them are detained. The activities of the terrorists were coordinated, as one would expect, from the territory of the terrorist state of Ukraine,” Sergei Aksyonov, the official, said on Telegram.
Aksyonov said the suspects were members of the Islamist group Hizb ut-Tahrir, which is banned in Russia.
There was no immediate comment from Ukraine.
(FRANCE 24 with AFP, AP and Reuters)
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