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Black Sea grain deal talks start in Istanbul; Kyiv says Russian forces have retreated near Bakhmut

Black Sea grain deal talks start in Istanbul; Kyiv says Russian forces have retreated near Bakhmut
Bloomberg
By Bloomberg
10 May 2023
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A two-day meeting on the Black Sea grain deal between United Nations officials and deputy defence ministers from Turkey, Russia and Ukraine started in Istanbul, Turkey’s state-run Anadolu Agency reported.

Ukraine said its troops pushed back Russian forces near Bakhmut in the eastern Donetsk region, though the Russian Defence Ministry said its units were advancing in the west and northwest of the devastated town.

Russian central bank assets worth 7.4-billion Swiss francs ($8.3-billion) are held across Switzerland, the government said following the introduction of new reporting obligations as part of the latest European Union sanctions package. 

Key developments



Germany approves Puma combat vehicle order 


German legislators approved the purchase of 50 Puma infantry fighting vehicles at a cost of €1.5-billion with the nation’s defence minister raising the prospect of another order later this year.

Boris Pistorius confirmed that the budget committee in the lower house of Parliament had given the green light for the procurement at a meeting he attended in Berlin. 

Putin signs decree on annual training of military reservists  


President Vladimir Putin’s decree on the annual draft of reservists for military training includes two secret orders, as in previous such statements, according to a document published by the Kremlin.

The document didn’t indicate how many people were being called up for exercises. Putin declared a “partial mobilisation” in September, calling up 300,000 reservists to support Russia’s faltering invasion of Ukraine, though the total number taken into service is likely to have exceeded half a million, according to Bloomberg Economics estimates.

Ukrainian consumer price rise is less than expected  


Annual inflation in Ukraine reached the lowest in a year last month as the country moved quickly to rebuild energy infrastructure damaged by Russian missile attacks.

Consumer prices rose by 17.9% in April from the previous year, the State Statistics Office said, coming in below the 18.7% median estimate of economists in a Bloomberg survey. Prices rose by 0.2% in April from the previous month.





 

 



 

Swiss say 7.4bn francs in Russian central bank assets held 


The figure represents all central bank reserves and assets reported in Switzerland to date and those funds have been immobilised, according to the government. It shouldn’t be confused with the 7.5-billion francs of assets frozen which belonged to sanctioned Russians or Russian companies, it said. 

Talks continue across the EU about whether Russian central bank assets held abroad should be permanently confiscated and put toward the reconstruction of Ukraine. While Swiss officials have previously sounded cool on the idea, the government said on Wednesday that these discussions were ongoing and are being followed “closely.”

Ukrainian army chief misses Nato committee meeting 


Ukrainian Armed Forces Commander-in-Chief Valeriy Zaluzhnyi was unable to join a meeting of the Nato Military Committee due to “the complex operational situation defending against the Russian aggression”.

Ukraine’s military representative to Nato, Serhii Salkutsan, replaced Zaluzhnyi at the meeting. 

Ukrainian troops break through near Bakhmut 


Ukraine advanced 2.6km into Russian-held areas near Bakhmut along a 3km stretch of front line, according to Andriy Biletskyi, a commander of the brigade that stormed Russian positions. 

The area was now liberated, with many Russians killed and captured, and military equipment destroyed, he said in comments that were impossible to immediately confirm. 

Ukraine’s General Staff declined to comment on the report. It came a day after Yevgeny Prigozhin, the head of the Wagner mercenary group, said a Russian army unit had fled its position in Bakhmut, exposing part of the frontline and ceding territory that 500 of his fighters had died taking.

Poland summons Russian ambassador over flight 


Poland’s Foreign Ministry issued a note of protest to Moscow’s ambassador to Warsaw over dangerous manoeuvres of a Russian Su-35 fighter near a Frontex border plane off Romania’s coast last Friday.

The crew of the Polish two-engine turboprop temporarily lost control of the plane when the jet intentionally crossed its flight path, Romania and Poland said.





 

 



 

Putin requests Parliament’s approval to leave arms pact  


Putin asked legislators for approval to withdraw from the Conventional Armed Forces in Europe Treaty, in which Russia had suspended its participation in 2015.

The 1990 treaty, negotiated in the final years of the Cold War, placed limits on Nato and Warsaw Pact conventional forces to prevent either alliance from waging a full-scale offensive that could have triggered a nuclear response.

Ukraine crop shipments slow to a crawl before talks 


Ukraine’s crop shipments are being throttled, even before the latest negotiations over extending an export deal that’s provided farmers with a vital outlet after Russia’s invasion. 

Vessel inspections have been repeatedly disrupted, leaving grain flows through the Black Sea lagging behind previous months. That’s adding to restrictions on cargoes bound for eastern Europe, which is hampering sales ahead of the next harvest.

Zaporizhzhia nuclear plant suffers staff shortage 


Ukraine’s nuclear power operator Energoatom said Russia was planning to relocate more than 3,000 people from Enerhodar, a town near the Zaporizhzhia nuclear plant. 

The plant, which is currently occupied by Russia, is suffering from a personnel shortage, which Energoatom is preparing to remedy in the expectation that Ukrainian forces will retake the area.

Nato chief expects boost to spending objectives  


Jens Stoltenberg, Nato’s secretary-general, said he expects leaders to aim for higher defence spending when they hold a summit in Vilnius in July.

He told a meeting of Nato military chiefs in Brussels that he expects they will agree to establish the alliance’s target of 2% of gross domestic product as “a minimum we have to invest in our defence”. He added that he expects leaders to endorse “a new Nato defence production action plan”.

Russian Twitter drive has Zuma’s daughter at centre - study 


A daughter of South Africa’s disgraced former president Jacob Zuma has been placed at the centre of a Russian-backed Twitter campaign to bolster support for the attack on Ukraine, according to the Centre for Information Resilience. 

A study backed by the London-based nonprofit group alleges that Duduzile Zuma-Sambudla was at the forefront of Russia’s drive to sway public opinion to its side in South Africa and beyond. Posts bearing her name were reused in other regions in the #IStandWithRussia and #IStandWithPutin Twitter campaigns, according to the CIR.

South Africa has been criticised by the US and European nations — among its biggest trading partners — for refusing to condemn Russia’s war in Ukraine by backing United Nations resolutions and hosting exercises with the Russian navy over the one-year mark of the invasion. DM

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