Issued on: 17/11/2022 – 07:28

8:15am: Ukrainian minister says Black Sea grain deal to be extended by 120 days

Ukraine’s infrastructure minister said on Thursday the Black Sea grain export agreement reached in July would be expended by 120 days. The minister, Oleksandr Kubrakov, gave no further details.

His remarks could not immediately be confirmed independently.

The July deal has helped stave off a global food crisis by allowing the export of food and fertilisers from several of Ukraine’s Black Sea ports that had been blockaded by Russia.

“#BlackSeaGrainInitiative will be prolonged for 120 days,” he wrote on Twitter, calling it “another important step in the global fight against the (global) food crisis.”

7:36am: Russian missile hits Odesa

Ukraine’s southern port city of Odesa was struck by a Russian missile on Thursday morning, Ukrainian authorities said.

Ukrainian media also reported a series of blasts in the city of Dnipro.

6:47am: Russia’s media watchdog blocks Novaya Gazeta website

Russia’s watchdog blocked access to the website of independent news site Novaya Gazeta on Thursday.

Novaya Gazeta suspended publication on its website, social media and in print in March in response to strict new censorship laws introduced by Russia.

In July, the Roskomnadzor media regulator also blocked a new Novaya Gazeta website that was launched in Europe by staff affiliated with the newspaper, and in September a court revoked Novaya Gazeta’s media license.

6:32am: Biden disputes Zelensky’s statement that missile that landed in Poland wasn’t Ukrainian

US President on Thursday disputed Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky’s statement that a missile that landed in Poland on Tuesday, killing two people, was not of Ukrainian origin.

“That’s not the evidence,” Biden told reporters at the White House upon returning from a trip to Asia.

6:01am: Ukrainian investigators find bodies with signs of torture in Kherson

Investigators in ‘s southern Kherson region have uncovered 63 bodies with signs of torture after Russian forces left the area, Ukraine’s Interior Minister Denys Monastyrsky was quoted as saying early on Thursday.

“Now, 63 bodies have been discovered in Kherson region, but we must understand that the search has only just started so many more dungeons and burial places will be uncovered,” Interfax Ukraine news agency quoted Monastyrsky as telling national television.

Monastyrsky said law enforcement bodies had uncovered 436 instances of war crimes during Russia’s occupation. Eleven places of detention had been discovered, including four where torture had been practiced.

“Investigators are currently examining them and setting down every instance of torture. Exhumations are also taking place of the bodies of those who were killed,” Monastyrsky told national television, according to Interfax.

Andriy Kovalenko, a prosecutor in the Kherson regional prosecutor’s office, told the New York Times that testimony had been gathered on 800 detentions by Russians in the region. He said that the most common types of abuse inflicted on detainees were electric shocks, beatings with plastic or rubber nightsticks, and suffocation by pinching the breathing hose on a gas mask placed over a prisoner’s head.

(FRANCE 24 with AP, REUTERS and AFP)