Russian President Vladimir Putin has acknowledged that this Monday’s (October 31, 2022) mass attacks on Ukraine’s energy infrastructure were carried out in part in response to a “terrorist attack” allegedly carried out by Kyiv against the Russian fleet in the Black Sea, and warned that there could be more retaliatory measures.
“It was partly” a response to an attack with more than 50 missiles on 18 Ukrainian energy targets in ten regions, Putin told a news conference after meeting in Sochi with Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev and Armenian Prime Minister Ilham Aliyev Nikol Pashinyan. “But that’s not all we can do,” he added.
Moscow claims that Kyiv attacked the Russian naval base in Sevastopol with drones and naval drones on Saturday, in what it described as a terrorist attack that damaged a minesweeper. According to the Russian Defense Ministry, one of the naval drones that Ukraine allegedly used to attack the Russian naval base in Sevastopol was launched from one of the civilian ships chartered to export Ukrainian grain, and others were moving along the humanitarian corridor’s safety zone.
Numerous bombings in Ukraine left a large part of the population without electricity and water.
This argument has served Moscow to suspend Ukraine’s grain export contract and ship traffic through the humanitarian corridor, although the UN has questioned this claim, stating that on the night of October 29, when the attack allegedly took place, there were no freighters in the corridor.
At the conference, Putin stressed that Russia had not withdrawn from the agreement but had suspended its participation, insisting that “Ukraine must ensure that there will be no threat to civilian ships and Russian supply ships.”
“This is not a joke: these submarines (naval craft) are six meters long and, according to me, 500 tons of explosives” or there will be nothing left of the grain and the ship. We will also be guilty,” he said. “Therefore, the Ministry of Defense correctly raises the issue of working additionally with the UN, and they with Ukraine, in order for Ukraine to guarantee the security of this corridor. I don’t see anything so unusual here,” Putin stressed. .
The president also reiterated that the grain export agreement signed in July with the mediation of the UN and Turkey does not work, because only between 3 and 4% of grain reaches the poorest countries, and the rest goes to Turkey and to the European Union (EU), something that both Kyiv and Brussels have already denied.
mn (efe, monkey)