Russia to cancel key export deal brokered by U.N.

KYIV, Ukraine — Russian announced Saturday that it will move to suspend its implementation of a U.N.-brokered grain deal that has allowed more than 9 million tons of grain exports from Ukraine and has brought down global food prices.

The Russian Defense Ministry cited an alleged Ukrainian drone attack against Russia’s Black Sea Fleet ships moored off the coast of occupied Crimea, which Russia says took place early Saturday, as the reason for the move. Ukraine denied the attack.

The Russian move came one day after U.N. chief Antonio Guterres urged Russia and Ukraine to renew the pact. Guterres also urged other countries, mainly in the West, to expedite the removal of obstacles blocking Russian grain and fertilizer exports.

The U.N. chief said the grain deal — brokered by the United Nations and Turkey in July and which expires on Nov. 19 — helps “to cushion the suffering that this global cost-of-living crisis is inflicting on billions of people,” his spokesperson said.

The head of the Ukrainian presidential office, Andriy Yermak, denounced the suspension as “primitive blackmail.”

Earlier Saturday, Ukraine and Russia offered conflicting versions on the Crimea drone attack in which at least one Russian ship suffered damage in Sevastopol, a major port on the Ukrainian peninsula annexed by Moscow in 2014.

The Russian Defense Ministry said a minesweeper had “minor damage” during an alleged predawn Ukrainian attack on navy and civilian vessels docked in Sevastopol, which hosts the headquarters of Russia’s Black Sea Fleet. The ministry claimed Russian forces had “repelled” 16 attacking drones.

An adviser to Ukraine’s Interior Ministry claimed that “careless handling of explosives” had caused blasts on four warships in Russia’s fleet. Anton Gerashchenko wrote on Telegram that the vessels included a frigate, a landing ship and a ship that carried cruise missiles used in a deadly July attack on a western Ukrainian city.

In other developments Saturday, Russian troops moved large numbers of sick and wounded comrades from hospitals in Ukraine’s southern Kherson region and stripped the facilities of medical equipment, Ukrainian military officials said as their forces fought to retake a province overrun by invading soldiers early in the war.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said the Russians were “dismantling the entire health care system” in Kherson and other occupied areas.

Kherson is one of four regions in Ukraine that Russian President Vladimir Putin illegally annexed last month and where he subsequently declared martial law. The others are Donetsk, Luhansk and Zaporizhzhia.

As Kyiv’s forces sought gains in the south, Russia kept up its shelling and missile attacks in the country’s east, Ukrainian authorities said Saturday. Three more civilians died and eight more were wounded in the Donetsk region, which has again become a frontline hot spot as Russian soldiers try to capture the city of Bakhmut.

Western analysts say Bakhmut is an important target in Russia’s stalled eastern offensive, one that would pave the way for Moscow’s forces to threaten Sloviansk and Kramatorsk, the two largest Ukrainian-held cities remaining in the Donbas region.

Efrem Lukatsky/Associated Press A resident carries wood scraps to build an outdoor fire for cooking near her damaged house in Sloviansk in the Donetsk region. The neighborhood was devastated by Russian shelling attacks.