July 25, 2022 Russia-Ukraine news

Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov says Moscow’s strike on the port of Odesa did not break any of the commitments it agreed to in a deal to guarantee the export of Ukrainian grain. 

“If we talk about the episode that took place in Odesa, there is nothing in the obligations that Russia has taken on — including within the framework of the agreements signed on July 22 in Istanbul — which would prohibit us from continuing the special military operation, destroying military infrastructure and other military targets,” Lavrov told journalists during a press conference in Congo. 

Lavrov went on to repeat Moscow’s claims it only struck military targets. 

“As for the targets of those high-precision strikes, they are located in a separate part of the Odesa port, in the so-called military part of the Odesa port,” he said. “These targets were the combat boat of the naval forces of Ukraine and the ammunition depot, where the Harpoon anti-ship missiles were recently delivered. They were brought there to pose a threat to the Russian Black Sea Fleet.”

“The experts also confirmed that the grain terminal of the Odesa port is located at a considerable distance from the military unit, there are no obstacles for grain to be delivered to customers in accordance with the agreements signed in Istanbul, we did not create them,” he added.

The Russian foreign minister is visiting several African countries to try and drum up support for Moscow’s invasion of Ukraine. African nations have been the worst affected by the restrictions on Ukrainian grain exports. 

A Ukrainian official said the country was preparing to resume grain exports soon despite Russia's attack on Odesa, while Russia's foreign minister has started a tour of various African nations aiming to shore up alliances. Fighting continues in the Kharkiv and Donetsk regions, while Ukrainian officials say they have carried out "very successful strategic operations" in southern Kherson region.

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Deputy Minister of Infrastructure Yurii Vaskov said that he hopes the first convoy will leave from the port of Chornomorsk this week after Russia and Ukraine signed a deal Friday that would allow the resumption of vital grain exports from Ukrainian Black Sea ports.

Within the next two weeks, three Ukrainian ports, including Odesa, will be ready to export grain, Vaskov added. He said that the agreement with Russia also included the import and export of fertilizers, which are crucial for future harvests.

A Coordination Center is being set up in Istanbul, Turkey, to oversee the maritime caravans, Vaskov said, adding that representatives from the countries involved are “already” in Istanbul and the center should be ready to function “by Wednesday.”

There is no limit on the volume of exports of grain under the agreement, according to Ukrainian Infrastructure Minister Oleksandr Kubrakov, who signed the deal.

The exports should mean “at least $1 billion in monthly export revenue” for Ukraine, he noted.

All of the maritime caravans will be escorted by Ukrainian ships, he explained.

“It was very crucial to us that — in the Ukrainian territorial waters — we will be controlling everything. The Ukrainian Navy will be controlling and not any other countries nor United Nations representatives or any other countries. That will be only the Ukrainian Navy,” Kubrakov said.

Correction: An earlier version of this post incorrectly attributed the timeline of exports. The timeline came from Ukraine's deputy infrastructure minister.

Ukrainian forces have hit three bridges in Kherson region as part of its campaign to hamper Russian logistics in occupied areas.

Two bridges over the Dnipro river were hit, as well as another bridge further north, according to Dmytro Butriy, a Ukrainian official who is acting head of Kherson military administration.

The Ukrainian military "work very precisely on the enemy's warehouses and manpower accumulation and very effectively on the enemy's logistics chains," Butriy told a news briefing.

Butriy said the strikes on Antonivskyi bridge, Dariivskyi bridge and Kakhovskyi bridge mean "the movement of the heavy equipment and vehicles is very complicated."

"They [Russian forces] are making the attempts to repair these bridges. There is information that they are planning to organize a pontoon crossing," he said.

Russia has charged 92 members of Ukraine's military high command with crimes against humanity, according to Alexander Bastrykin, head of Russia’s Investigative Committee.

In total, Moscow has opened more than 1,300 criminal cases against Ukraine’s military and political leadership, Bastrykin said in an interview with government news site Rossiyskaya Gazeta published Monday. He did not name any of those charged.

CNN has not independently verified the claims made by Bastrykin.

“In the course of the preliminary investigation, more than 220 people have been identified as involved in crimes against the peace and security of humanity that do not have a statute of limitations, including representatives of the high command of the Armed Forces of Ukraine, as well as commanders of military units that fired at civilians,” Bastrykin told Rossiyskaya Gazeta.

“A total of 92 commanders and their subordinates have been charged. 96 people were put on the wanted list, in particular 51 commanders of the Armed Forces of Ukraine,” he said.

The head of the Investigative Committee also suggested creating a separate international tribunal for crimes in Ukraine.

“Taking into account the position of the ‘collective West,' which openly sponsors Ukrainian nationalism and supports the Kyiv regime, the creation of such a tribunal under the auspices of the UN in the current perspective is extremely doubtful,” he said.

“The establishment of the court and its charter could be formalized by an agreement between Russia, the member countries of these organizations, the Donetsk and Luhansk people's republics.”

Some background: Bastrykin’s claims come as Ukraine is investigating more than 20,000 war crimes, according to now former Ukrainian Prosecutor General Iryna Venediktova.

Venediktova had previously said that Ukraine has identified more than 600 Russian war crime suspects and has started prosecuting around 80 of them. Two Russian soldiers have already been convicted under Ukrainian criminal law.

Earlier this month, prosecutors from Ukraine and the International Criminal Court (ICC) met in The Hague to share expertise on investigating global war crimes and apply it to the atrocities committed in Ukraine.

ICC chief prosecutor Karim Khan had called Ukraine a "crime scene" after visiting the Ukrainian towns of Bucha and Borodianka in April, where mass graves and murdered civilians were discovered following the Russian withdrawal.

There is great beauty in Ukraine, amid the pain and suffering. In the port city of Odesa, dancers in rehearsal try to tune out Russia’s deadly war.

At the city’s famous opera house, performance is more than just a beautiful expression of art and culture. Against the terrible backdrop of Russia’s invasion, the ballet dancers here offer a symbol of defiance. A sign that Ukrainians are not giving up.

Chief Conductor Viacheslav Chernukho-Volich says this expression of humanity is why the country must fight.

“Just listen,” he says, as the music of Chopin rises from the orchestra pit.

Odesa was struck on Saturday by two Russian Kalibr missiles, hitting crucial infrastructure needed to get Ukraine’s grain harvest out to the world.

Not far from the port stands the 135-year-old theatre, the jewel in the crown of this cultural capital. Inside, opera and ballet performances are back. CNN visited a Friday night performance of Les Sylphides, punctuated by air raid sirens.

Moments before the show, performers and the audience are forced down to the basement bomb shelter. There, two soloist ballerinas stretch to stay limber. 

Kateryna Kalchenko admits she’s afraid, "though we’re getting accustomed to these threats and that in itself is horrible,” she said.

After a delayed start, the show goes on. “Glory to Ukraine” sounds over the tannoy as the curtains raise.

An hour into the show, Kalchenko crosses herself as she enters stage right. But her performance only lasts a few steps before the sirens sounds again.

Down in the basement again, Kalchenko has a message.

“I want the whole world to start screaming,” she says. “To stop this horror, so that innocent children stop dying.”

Watch CNN's Ivan Watson's full report:

Russian forces continue to attack Ukraine's Donetsk region and Kharkiv region, but there are conflicting reports about whether any territory has been won or lost.

Ukrainian officials say that "shelling continues along the entire front line, with the most active shelling in the Bakhmut district," where Russian forces are trying to cut off Ukrainian defenders.

Mortar fire against Bakhmut injured one person, officials said, without providing details of any military casualties.

Some civilians remain in Bakhmut even though the area has been shelled almost every day for nearly two months. One person was killed in nearby Soledar. 

The cities of Kramatorsk and Kostiantynivka have also been under Russian fire, and the head of the military administration, Pavlo Kyrylenko, posted a photograph of a rocket embedded in the sitting room floor of an apartment.

On the ground, the Ukrainian military said its soldiers had repulsed assaults toward the village of Ivano-Dariivka "and forced the invaders to pull back."

Fighting continued around the Vuhlehirska power plant south of Bakhmut, it added.

On Sunday night, pro-Russian officials in occupied Donetsk claimed that the power plant was surrounded.

"The territory of the plant is completely blocked. But not cleared yet," said Ivan Prikhodko, head of Horlivka Administration, on Telegram.

The Ukrainian military say there is still fighting going on to the southeast of the plant, which its forces have been defending for several weeks in a pocket of gradually shrinking territory.  

To the north, in the Kharkiv region, the town of Chuhuiv was shelled again by Russian artillery.

Several people were feared trapped under the rubble of a house, according to authorities.

The United States is working with Ukraine on a "Plan B" to get grain exports out of the country following Russia's attack on the port of Odesa, according to United States Agency for International Development Administrator Samantha Power. 

"Plan B involves road and rail and river and sending in barges and adjusting the rail systems so that they're better aligned with those in Europe so that the exports can move out more quickly," Power told CNN's Larry Madowo in an interview in Nairobi, Kenya on Sunday, after visiting drought-stricken areas of Kenya and Somalia last week.

"We have been living the contingency plan because there's no way you can trust anything that Vladimir Putin says," she continued. 

Power stressed that despite the security afforded by a contingency plan, "there is no substitute for Putin allowing the blockade to end and the grains being sent out the most efficient way possible."

On Friday, Russia and Ukraine signed a deal allowing for the export of Ukrainian grain through the Black Sea after months of tough negotiations, mediated by Turkey and the United Nations.

However just one day later, Russia carried out a missile strike on the southern Ukrainian port of Odesa, where vital grain stocks have been lying in storage. 

More than half of Somalia's wheat imports come from Ukraine, said Power, adding that 20 million metric tons of wheat and corn are still trapped at the port of Odesa.

Power said she hopes that that the grain deal "somehow sticks" despite Russia's move to "immediately turn its back" on it by bombing the port.

Ensuring the supply of grain will help drive down prices, Power said.

"Even the specter of this deal working and being enforced and the grains leaving the port brought prices down, even in a 24-hour period," she said. "So, more supply with the same amount of demand is going to mean lower prices."

Last week, the US announced an additional $1.3 billion in humanitarian assistance to the Horn of Africa, with unprecedented drought across Ethiopia, Kenya and Somalia. 

Power called on countries that play "leadership roles in the international system, such as the People's Republic of China clearly aspires to do," to "dig deeper" to prevent the food crisis "from becoming a catastrophe."

Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov is in Africa this week to demonstrate Russian commitment to the region and shore up alliances amid the war in Ukraine.

On Sunday, Lavrov visited Egypt, meeting with top officials including Foreign Minister Sameh Shukri and Arab League secretary general Ahmed Aboulgheit, discussing the issue of grain exports from Ukraine and claiming that Moscow is open to negotiations with Kyiv.

Egypt is the world’s biggest importer of wheat, relying heavily on Ukraine and Russia for supplies to feed a population of 100 million. 

Lavrov will also travel to Ethiopia, Uganda and the Republic of Congo.

Most African countries have not condemned the Russian invasion of Ukraine as they seek to maintain balance in their relationships with Russia and western countries.

“The Africans are reciprocating. They are interested in having us. We never engaged in teaching them anything, but helped them overcome their problems so that they could live in their country the way they wanted to,” Lavrov told Russian state media in an interview before he started his tour.

“To this day, we are not lecturing them, unlike the Americans who go around Africa telling everyone ‘do not talk with the Chinese or the Russians,'" he said. "All they care about is their selfish interests, even when they trade with you.”