Russia makes goodwill gesture to relieve food crisis

The Russian military has withdrawn from a Black Sea island it captured, claiming it was for the sake of grain freight traffic

Russian troops were withdrawn from Ukraine’s Snake Island on Thursday, the defense ministry announced during a daily briefing. The move was described as a goodwill gesture meant to alleviate concerns over Moscow allegedly blocking attempts to haul grain out of Ukraine.

“This demonstrated to the international community that the Russian Federation does not hinder the UN effort to organize a humanitarian corridor to ship agricultural products from the Ukrainian territory,” Col. Gen. Igor Konashenkov, the spokesman for the ministry, said.

Konashenkov assessed that with no Russian presence on the island, Kiev would find it more difficult to accuse Russia of exacerbating the global food crisis by citing the Russian Navy’s control of the northwestern part of the Black Sea as a roadblock to the movement of grain.

“The ball is now in the court of the Ukrainian side, which would not remove mines from its Black Sea coast, including the areas near ports,” the Russian official said.

Western nations and Ukraine have been accusing Russia of blocking seaborne exports from Kiev-controlled ports like Odessa, claiming that it was a major factor of the global hike in food prices.

Moscow has denied the allegations, saying that its Navy offered safe passage to civilian ships. It’s Ukraine, Russia insists, which has prevented foreign ships from arriving and leaving its ports. Ukraine’s use of old sea mines, which are prone to coming untethered during storms, created a major problem for traffic, Moscow argued.

Russia captured Snake Island, which is located 35 kilometers off the Ukrainian shore near its border with Romania, in the early days of its attack on Ukraine. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky initially claimed that border guards defending the territory had all been killed after defying overwhelming Russian forces. It later turned out they’d actually surrendered.

Kiev reportedly launched at least two major attempts to retake the island from Russia. Russian troops reported inflicting serious damage on their opponents in both cases. Moscow rebuked the Ukrainian operations as senseless attempts by the Ukrainian government to score publicity points.

Russia sent troops into Ukraine on February 24, citing Kiev’s failure to implement the Minsk agreements, designed to give the regions of Donetsk and Lugansk special status within the Ukrainian state. The protocols, brokered by Germany and France, were first signed in 2014. Former Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko has since admitted that Kiev’s main goal was to use the ceasefire to buy time and “create powerful armed forces.”

In February 2022, the Kremlin recognized the Donbass republics as independent states and demanded that Ukraine officially declare itself a neutral country that will never join any Western military bloc. Kiev insists the Russian offensive was completely unprovoked.

Thanks, Russia. 

Cynical stuff. 

Russia to help makes food crisis go away? Did he rebuild the 50+ food processing plants the US had burned down? Fuck me. Ukraine wheat is like what? A tiny percent of global supply. Russia contributes far far more and what about the bullshit sanctions? Fuck me the west deserves to fucking starve to death. 

Good will gesture me hole. That island is a an exposed death trap for anyone trying to hold it. The Ukrainians won't send troops there now that the Russians have forced out for the same reason.

Both sides engage in propaganda, and no more so when they suffer set backs but the claims that the abandoning of Snake Island is a good will gesture from the Russians who are at the very same time wreck havoc down on Ukraine is just ridiculous.

You know what would be a good will gesture Russia, fucking off back to Russia.

Stav

And leaving the unarmed Russian speaking residents of Ukraine to be murdered by the Ukrainian armed forces - there were over 18 000 of those since 2014?    Highly unlikely - they would not leave the areas where most Russian-speaking people reside .   By the way the figure of 18 000 came from Wikipedia and not propaganda sources. 

The goodwill gesture will be to get back to peace negotiations based on the Minsk agreement - but the Biden Administration will try to sabotage that like they did with the 2015 Minsk agreement.   There is more money to feed the corrupt US and in the main  Democratic leaders through kickbacks to make that a serious proposition.          .       

Here’s an alternative view from the Economist which expands on Stav’s point:

For a rock just twice the size of Alcatraz, Snake Island has played a surprisingly big role in the war in Ukraine. The fortress was a target from day one, when Russia’s Black Sea flagship, the Moskva, arrived at its shores to request the surrender of its tiny guardpost. The garrison’s famously impolite refusal became a rallying cry for the country. The sinking of the Moskva in April, in turn, saw the rock take on a new defensive significance for Russian vessels in the Black Sea. In the days that followed the sinking Russia fortified the island with new anti-aircraft, missile and radar systems. Ukraine responded when it could, using what it could: fighter jets, Bayraktar drones and anti-ship missiles. But the Russians did not budge.

Ukraine may now have succeeded in a new offensive to wrest back control of the island, with reports from the Ukrainian side as The Economist went to press on June 30th that the Russians were in retreat, and a report from Russia that it was withdrawing as a “goodwill gesture” to facilitate the export of grain from Odessa. Not many people will believe that is the real reason, and there are still many obstacles to reopening the port, a crucial part of the global food supply-chain. 

The assault had been going on for at least ten days. An early-morning attack on June 20th had targeted the island and nearby gas platforms that Russia has reportedly been using as radar and surveillance stations. The explosions were so loud they woke residents of Vylkove, the nearest settlement, 35km away on the mainland. Nikolai Izotov, who lives there, says that “we’re used to sleepless nights, but this was something new.” In the days since then, Ukraine stepped up attacks, hitting the rock with new, long-range artillery. The Russians responded by targeting Odessa with dozens of long-range missiles.

Snake Island, known in Ukrainian as Zmiinyi, is only 45km from Romania, a member of nato. Its location overlooking the Danube delta and shipping channels to Odessa and other Black Sea ports makes it a strategic prize. It could also serve as a bridgehead for an amphibious attack on Odessa, some 140km away. Russia had set up a reconnaissance station with a group of marine commandos from the 388th division, says Andrii Ryzhenko, a former Ukrainian navy captain now at the Centre for Defence Strategies, a think-tank in Kyiv. 

The shoreline around Vylkove has been long mooted as a potential first stop for any amphibious attack on Odessa. The Ukrainian army this week closed off access to several islands surrounding the town. The islands had been a source of subsistence for some of the increasingly impoverished locals; they would head there to pick apples, figs, grapes and berries. The ban has added to a tense mood in the city. “We see these huge ships and imagine the horrors of a thousand Russian soldiers landing on our shore,” says Mr Izotov. He jokes that he is personally worried because he has a cellar full of homemade wine and moonshine. “You know what drunks they are.” 

Ukraine has launched several daring raids on the island since the sinking of the Moskva. The most audacious came in May, when the Ukrainians used a combination of fighter jets and Bayraktar drones to destroy landing ships and a helicopter. There was then a long pause, until June 17th, when reports came of the apparent sinking of a Russian supply ship, the Vasily Bekh. Local media said the vessel was hit by two Western anti-ship missiles, and was in the middle of unloading a Tor air-defence system that had not yet been set up to protect against the attack. Unconfirmed reports suggest as many as 33 men were on board. 

The battle for Snake Island has been all about logistics: which side is able to get the right equipment to the right place first. Russia was in a stronger position for most of the war. But Ukraine has lately started to take delivery of some advanced Western artillery systems and long-range rockets. These are mobile, precise and have a long enough range to strike the island from the mainland. They allow Ukraine to attack without risking its remaining fighter jets, and may well have tipped the balance. 

Ukraine will be in no rush to put its forces back on the rock; it simply hopes to make it impossible for Russia to make any use of the island. “With their superiority in the air and with the ships of the Black Sea, it is easier for them to kill us on Snake Island than it is for us to kill them,” says Mr Ryzhenko, the former Ukrainian captain. But that, he adds, is why forcing Russians off the island will be only the beginning of a long story. “We need to be sinking their ships if we are to stand a chance.” ?

Do we believe Putin abandoned the rock as a goodwill gesture or because it was proving to be an embarrassing endeavor.

I’m inclined to reject the goodwill bs.

. 

Same

Stav

Lol... Stav, be nice dude.... it's Friday, c'mon

PS, my bins were picked up

PS, my bins were picked up

Did Joe himself collect them?

It is simple, DumbMike is a liar that never quotes his sources. No credible person supports his BS, so he can never prove any of his fantasies. 
He lives in a fantasy reality with the other Qanon 4Chan whack jobs. 

If facts don't support his reality, he just changes the reality. Living a lie...

The far alt-right hates living in a liberal and Democratic world. He loves authoritarianism, in all its forms.
Back in the day, he enforced Apartheid before switching sides when he saw an opportunity to accept bribes.
He traded one authoritarian political party for another, as long as he could accept better bribes. He is worse than US politicians... 

"It is simple, DumbMike is an unashamed liar"

https://youtu.be/SuC-7xAXC0s