July 17, 2023 - Russia-Ukraine news

In withdrawing from the Black Sean Grain Initiative, the Russian Foreign Ministry said Monday that its government was removing guarantees for safe navigation in the Black Sea. 

The Foreign Ministry said that the Russian government objects to the further extension of the deal and officially informed the Turkish and Ukrainian sides on Monday, adding that the UN secretariat was also notified.

"Contrary to the declared humanitarian goals, the export of Ukrainian food was almost immediately transferred to a purely commercial basis and until the last moment was aimed at serving the narrowly selfish interests" of Kyiv and the West, the statement read, using the Russian name for the Ukrainian capital.

The ministry also stressed that the Russia-UN Memorandum did not function as planned. "We are forced to state that none of the five systemic tasks envisaged by the Russia-UN Memorandum have been fulfilled," the statement read.

According to the ministry, Russia would be ready to consider restoring the "deal" only if the West fulfills its obligations and actually withdraws Russian fertilizers and food from the sanctions. 

What the UN says: A United Nations official has confirmed to CNN that the UN office in Istanbul, Turkey, has received written notice from Russia that they are ending participation in the Ukraine grain deal.

“The Secretary-General will not stop his efforts to facilitate the unimpeded access to global markets for food products and fertilizers from both Ukraine and the Russian Federation to preserve global food security,” the UN official said.

CNN's Alex Marquardt in Odesa, Ukraine contributed to this report.

The UK has imposed 14 new sanctions on Russian individuals in response to the forced deportation of Ukrainian children, according to a statement from the UK’s Foreign office.

The sanctions were enacted against officials including Ksenia Mishonova, commissioner for Children’s Rights in the Moscow Region, and Sergey Kravtsov, minister of education of Russia.

The UK’s Foreign Secretary, James Cleverly, said Monday: “In his chilling program of forced child deportation, and the hate-filled propaganda spewed by his lackeys, we see Putin’s true intention — to wipe Ukraine from the map."

“Today’s sanctions hold those who prop up Putin’s regime to account, including those who would see Ukraine destroyed, its national identity dissolved, and its future erased,” Cleverly added.

The cost of wheat rose 3% to $6.80 a bushel, following the Russian government's announcement that it is terminating the Black Sea grain deal with Ukraine.

The benchmark wheat contract — the contract for a particular product that most traders of that item will look to in order to price their own contracts — hiked early Monday, according to the Chicago Board of Trade.

Futures prices are still down 52% from their all-time high hit in early March 2022.

The agreement brokered by the United Nations and Turkey with Moscow and Kyiv in June 2022 allowed for the safe passage of grain exports from southern Ukraine into the global market.

Samantha Power, the administrator of the US Agency for International Development (USAID), arrived in Ukraine on Monday.

US Ambassador Bridget Brink greeted her at a rail station, as seen in a video Power posted on Twitter.

The US has remained a staunch ally of Ukraine since the Kremlin launched its invasion in February 2022, donating billions of dollars worth of military aid and imposing sanctions on Russia in an attempt to squeeze its economy.

The key Crimean bridge linking the occupied peninsula to Russia was hit by two strikes early Monday, according to multiple reports. Ukraine's Security Service (SBU) and naval forces were responsible for the attack, according to a source.

The Kerch Bridge is strategically important because it links Russia’s Krasnodar region with the Crimean Peninsula, which was illegally annexed by Russia from Ukraine in 2014.

It also has huge symbolic importance for Russia, which built the 12-mile bridge — the longest in Europe — at a cost of around $3.7 billion. It was the physical expression of Russian President Vladimir Putin’s objective to take over Ukraine and bind it to Russia forever.  

The day it opened, Putin led a triumphant convoy over the bridge. Ukrainians revile the structure, which stands as a reminder of Russian occupation.

In October, the bridge was partially destroyed when a fuel tanker exploded and damaged a large section of the road. The Kremlin was quick to blame Kyiv and Putin alleged that it was an act of “sabotage” by Ukrainian security services. Moscow was quick to repair the bridge following that explosion.

The bridge is a critical artery for supplying Crimea with both its daily needs and supplies for the military, in addition to fuel and goods for civilians. Russian military convoys have regularly used the bridge to aid their full-scale invasion of Ukraine — carrying vehicles, armor and fuel. 

If the Russian military’s use of the bridge is hampered, its supply lines to forces in southern Ukraine would become more tenuous. 

Russia has used the Crimean railroads to ferry supplies to forces in Kherson and several rail hubs in both Crimea and Kherson have been attacked by long-range Ukrainian rockets. Rail traffic across the bridge continued to operate on Monday, albeit with delays, according to video on social media, a Russian official and Russian state media.

A United Nations official has confirmed to CNN that the UN office in Istanbul, Turkey, has received written notice from Russia that they are ending participation in the Ukraine grain deal, officially called the Black Sea Grain Initiative.

The agreement allowed for the safe passage of grain exports from southern Ukraine to the global market after Russian forces barricaded ports in the region and exacerbated a widespread food crisis.

“The Secretary-General will not stop his efforts to facilitate the unimpeded access to global markets for food products and fertilizers from both Ukraine and the Russian Federation to preserve global food security,” the UN official said.

A United Nations official later told CNN that the organization sees Russia's decision as “pretty final,” adding that the focus for Ukraine’s grain was now on exporting via land routes, road and rail. 

The Russian government on Monday said that it's allowing a deal struck to allow the export of Ukrainian grain to expire, saying “it has been terminated.” The agreement, brokered by Turkey and the United Nations in July 2022, was officially set to expire at 5 p.m. ET on Monday (midnight local in Istanbul, Kyiv, and Moscow). The deal allowed Ukraine to export grain from its ports and navigate safe passage through the Black Sea, to Turkey’s Bosphorus Strait.

The UN official said that their main concern was the inevitable human suffering that will result from the deal’s termination: “There is simply too much at stake in a hungry and hurting world.”

The initiative has allowed for the export of nearly 33 million metric tons of foodstuffs from Ukraine. The World Food Programme has shipped more than 725,000 tons to support humanitarian operations – relieving, the official said, hunger in some of the hardest hit corners of the world, including Afghanistan, Ethiopia, Kenya, Somalia, Sudan and Yemen.

The Russian government is allowing the Black Sea grain deal to expire, saying on Monday “it has been terminated.”

The agreement, brokered by Turkey and the United Nations in July 2022, was officially set to expire at 5 p.m. ET on Monday (midnight local in Istanbul, Kyiv, and Moscow). The deal allowed Ukraine to export grain from its ports and navigate safe passage through the Black Sea, to Turkey’s Bosphorus Strait.

The Russian government has formally informed Turkey, Ukraine and the United Nations that it is allowing the deal to expire, foreign ministry spokesperson Maria Zakharova told state media RIA Novosti on Monday.

When asked, Peskov denied that Russia’s decision to allow the deal to lapse was related to Ukraine’s claimed strike on the Crimean Bridge on Monday, which connects mainland Russia to the peninsula.

Key background: The Black Sea grain deal imposed measures for the safe export of grain from Ukrainian ports after Russia launched its invasion and barricaded docks in the region.

The key deal helped stabilize global food prices and brought relief to countries in the Global South that rely on Ukrainian exports.

But Russian President Vladimir Putin told his South African counterpart on Saturday that "the relevant Russia-UN memorandum to remove obstacles to the export of Russian food and fertilizers still remain unfulfilled,” according to the Kremlin.

US Secretary of State Antony Blinken last week accused Russia of using the grain deal “as a weapon.”

CNN's Radina Gigova and Sophie Tanno contributed reporting.

A source from Ukraine's security service (SBU) said Monday that an attack on the Crimean Bridge linking the peninsula with Russia overnight was a joint operation of the SBU and Ukraine’s naval forces.

The source spoke on condition of anonymity because they had not received authorization to speak on the record.

Russia’s foreign ministry on Monday held the Ukrainian government responsible for an “attack” on the bridge connecting the Russian mainland to occupied Crimea, echoing claims from other senior officials in Moscow.

“Today's attack on the Crimean bridge was carried out by the Kyiv regime,” Maria Zakharova said on her Telegram channel. “This regime is a terrorist one and has all the signs of an international organized criminal group.”

The Kremlin said earlier that it had opened an official investigation into what the Russian Investigative Committee calls “a terrorist act committed by the special services of Ukraine.”

Kyiv has not responded directly to the allegations, but the Security Service of Ukraine (SBU) hinted that the Ukrainian government was responsible.

In a statement on Telegram, threaded to an October 2022 post referring to a previous attack on the Crimean Bridge last year, the SBU said: “Nightingale, my dear brother, The bridge has gone to sleep again. And once… Twice!”

CNN's Mick Krever contributed reporting.