Ukraine and Russia are set to sign a deal on Friday to unblock grain exports and relieve a global food crisis, as a critical Russian gas pipeline to Europe reopened, AFP reports.
But there was no respite in the conflict on the ground, with Russian artillery on Thursday pounding Ukraine’s second largest city Kharkiv, already scarred by weeks of shelling.
UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres was due to arrive in Turkey on Thursday for the grain deal signing ceremony at Istanbul’s lavish Dolmabahce Palace on the Bosphorus Strait.
The first major agreement between the warring sides since Russia’s February invasion of its neighbour comes with global food prices soaring and people in some of the world’s poorest countries facing starvation.
President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s spokesman Ibrahim Kalin tweeted that the agreement will be signed in Istanbul on Friday under the auspices of the Turkish leader, Guterres and Ukrainian and Russian delegations.
The five-month war is being fought across one of Europe’s most fertile regions by two of the world’s biggest producers of grain.
Up to 25 million tonnes of wheat and other grain have been blocked in Ukrainian ports by Russian warships and landmines Kyiv has laid to avert a feared amphibious assault.
