Here’s a bit more background on the upcoming meeting between Russian president Vladimir Putin and his Turkish counterpart Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, courtesy of AFP:
Erdoğan’s first face-to-face meeting with Putin since October comes as Russian forces try to hold off a new Kyiv offensive that has started to show promise after three months of brutal battles along Ukraine’s southern front.
The Turkish leader hopes to use the informal summit in the Black Sea resort of Sochi as a basis for peace negotiations that some western officials are debating, but that both sides only want held on their own terms.
Erdoğan has been one of the few leaders within the Nato defence alliance to maintain open access to Putin.
The two leaders have had a close but tempestuous relationship that appears to have grown stronger since Russia launched its “special military operation” in February 2022.
Putin’s decision to discount and delay Turkey’s payments for Russian gas imports helped ease an economic crisis that almost kept Erdogan from winning re-election in May.
Turkey reciprocated by refusing to join western sanctions on Moscow and becoming a crucial venue for Russia to access services and goods.
But Erdoğan has also irritated Putin by supplying Ukraine with weapons and backing its ambitions to join Nato.
The Kremlin grew particularly angry when Erdoğan in July allowed visiting Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskiy to bring back five commanders that Russia sent to Turkey in a major prisoner swap.
The commanders were meant to stay in Turkey and the Kremlin warned that it would “take this into account in our future agreements” with Erdogan.
Yet both Moscow and Kyiv are now seeking Erdoğan’s backing in their standoff over grain and hostilities in the Black Sea.
Russian president Vladimir Putin (R) shakes hands with Turkey's president Recep Tayyip Erdoğan prior to their talks on the sidelines of the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation summit in September 2022. Photograph: Alexandr Demyanchuk/AP
Ukrainian air defences shot down 17 drones targeting the Odesa region, governor Oleg Kiper has said in a Telegram post, but added “unfortunately there were also hits”.
In an update to previous posts he said the attack on Izmail had lasted a total of three and a half hours. Several buildings including warehouses were struck and agricultural machinery and industrial equipment were damaged, he said.
Several fires also broke out in civilian residences due to falling debris, he said, but they had since been put out. There were no deaths or injuries.
Russia has launched its second attack in two nights on Ukrainian ports, with Ukrainian officials warning residents of Izmail to remain in shelters in the early hours of Monday.
Oleg Kiper, the governor of Odesa, said Moscow launched an almost two-hour drone attack on the city, one of Ukraine’s two major grain-exporting ports on the Danube River in the south of the region. The Ukrainian air force also said drones had targeted the nearby district of Kili.
A day earlier, Russia attacked the Danube port of Reni. The defence ministry in Moscow said the drones had struck fuel depots used by the Ukrainian military.
Russia has increasingly targeted port infrastructure since July, when it pulled out of the deal brokered by the UN and Turkey that had allowed Ukraine to export its grain via its Black Sea ports.
Monday’s assault comes just hours ahead of a meeting between Russian president Vladimir Putin and his Turkish counterpart Recep Tayyip Erdoğan at which the Turk is expected to push to revive the deal.
Hello and welcome to the Guardian’s live coverage of the war in Ukraine with me, Helen Livingstone.
Russia has launched an attack on a Ukrainian port critical to the country’s grain exports hours ahead of a meeting between Russian president Vladimir Putin and his Turkish counterpart Recep Tayyip Erdoğan. Ankara is keen to use the meeting in the Black Sea resort of Sochi to revive a deal that had allowed Kyiv to export its grain via its Black Sea ports but which Moscow refused to renew in July.
In the early hours of Monday, Odesa governor Oleg Kiper warned residents of Izmail, a port on the Danube River in the region’s south, to remain in shelters as Moscow launched a drone attack that continued for “almost two hours”. No information about casualties or damage to infrastructure was immediately available.
The attack came a day after Russia targeted the Danube port of Reni, saying its drones had hit a fuel depot used by the Ukrainian military. That assault was condemned by Romania, which is just across the river, and Moldova, which is just miles away to the north.
In other developments:
Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskiy has said he plans to dismiss the defence minister, Oleksii Reznikov, from his post and will ask parliament this week to replace him with Rustem Umerov, the head of Ukraine’s main privatisation fund. The announcement, made in the Ukrainian president’s nightly video address to the nation, sets the stage for the biggest shake-up of Ukraine’s defence establishment since the war was launched by Russia in February 2022. Zelenskiy has to submit Umerov’s candidacy to parliament for review.
Zelenskiy and his French counterpart, Emmanuel Macron, spoke on Sunday, discussing the “functioning” of a sea corridor set up by Kyiv for safe navigation of ships after Moscow exited a landmark grain deal in July. The phone call came on the eve of a summit in Russia between president Vladimir Putin and his Turkish counterpart Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, who wants to revive the deal.
Russia is exploiting foreign nationals in its effort to acquire more personnel for its war effort in the face of mounting casualties, and probably views millions of migrants from central Asia as potential recruits, according to the UK’s Ministry of Defence.
Moscow has recruited 230,000 people into the army since the start of the year, ex-president and Security Council chairman Dmitry Medvedev said on Sundayaccording to Tass news agency. “Part of them were in the reserves, part of them volunteers and other categories,” he said during a visit to the Far Eastern Russian island of Sakhalin. It was not possible for the Guardian to verify these numbers.
Ukrainian oligarch Ihor Kolomoisky has been arrested on suspicion of fraud and money laundering. The detention of the one-time supporter of Zelenskiy, whose election he backed in 2019, comes as Kyiv is trying to signal progress during a wartime crackdown on corruption.
Ukrainian forces have decisively breached Russia’s first defensive linenear Zaporizhzhia after weeks of painstaking mine clearance, and expect faster gains as they press the weaker second line, the general leading the southern counteroffensive has told the Observer. Brig Gen Oleksandr Tarnavskiy said Ukrainian forces were now pushing out on both sides of the breach and consolidating their hold on territory seized in recent fighting.
A non-residential building in the western Russian city of Kurchatov caught fire on Sunday after an attack by a Ukrainian drone but emergency services put the fire out and there were no casualties, Roman Starovoit, governor of the Kursk region, said.
Ukraine expects a boom in drone productionas early as this autumn, according to its outgoing defence minister. Reznikov told the state-run Ukrinform news agency one reason for the growth of production was that authorities had reduced various regulations and laws.
