Russian President Vladimir Putin threatened - on Wednesday - that Russia will withdraw again from the agreement to export Ukrainian grain through the Black Sea, after it reversed its decision to suspend its participation in it, while violent clashes erupted in the Donbass region in eastern Ukraine.

In a short speech broadcast live on Russian television, Putin said he had asked the Defense Ministry to resume its participation in the grain export agreement that is being implemented under Turkish UN sponsorship.

But the Russian president stressed that his country reserves the right to withdraw from this agreement in the event that Ukraine violates the guarantees requested by Moscow.

Putin said that Russia would not impede the future supply of grain from Ukraine to Turkey;

Ankara's neutrality and President Recep Tayyip Erdogan's efforts for poor countries.

His comments came shortly after Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan announced the resumption of work on the agreement, starting from Wednesday noon.

For its part, the Kremlin said that Moscow stipulated a return to the implementation of the grain deal: to allow the passage of its products, and to stop Kyiv's use of the safe passage for military objectives.

Earlier today, the Russian Ministry of Defense announced the resumption of the agreement on the safe transportation of grain and foodstuffs from Ukrainian ports, and its spokesman Igor Konashenkov said that his country took this decision after obtaining written guarantees from the Ukrainian side that the safe passage and Ukrainian ports would not be used for military purposes against Russia. .

A few days ago, Russia announced the suspension of its participation in the agreement, after it accused Ukraine of launching an attack by planes and drones on the Russian fleet in Crimea, through the safe passage for the export of grain in the Black Sea.

This agreement was concluded between Ukraine and Russia last July under the auspices of Turkey and the United Nations, to alleviate the global food crisis caused by the war, especially in Africa, to expire on 19 November.


Violent clashes

In the field developments, the Russian Defense Ministry said - today, Wednesday - that its forces carried out a military operation against the positions of the Ukrainian army in the Donetsk province of the Donbass region (east).

The ministry published pictures showing the targeting of what it said were Ukrainian soldiers, and stated that this operation greatly impeded the movement of Ukrainian soldiers in the vicinity of Avdiivka city.

For its part, Ukrainian military sources reported that violent clashes took place along the lines of contact in the Donbass region between Russian and Ukrainian forces, and the sources confirmed that Ukrainian forces prevented the advance of Russian forces in Donetsk and Lugansk regions.

The Ukrainian governor of Donetsk said that 4 civilians were killed and 10 wounded in Russian shelling on cities and towns in the province in the past 24 hours.

In the south, a spokesman for the Ukrainian Kherson Council, Sergey Khelan, said that there was no indication of Russia's intention to wage a street war in the city, which has been controlled by Russian forces since the beginning of the war and Ukrainian forces are seeking to regain it.

Khellan accused the Russian forces of continuing to intimidate the population, to get them to evacuate.

Russia has evacuated tens of thousands of residents of the western bank of the Dnipro River in the city of Kherson, and yesterday began new evictions from the eastern bank of the river in anticipation of a Ukrainian attack to retake the city.

On the other hand, the Russian State Security Service announced that it had thwarted what it called a sabotage operation organized by the Ukrainian special security services, which targeted an energy infrastructure facility in the Crimea.


Air Defense

Meanwhile, Andrei Yermak, director of the office of Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, said that his country is conducting an active dialogue with the West to obtain more anti-aircraft missile systems;

to repel Russian attacks.

Ukraine recently acquired the German IRIS-T SLM air defense system, while the US Department of Defense announced that it would soon hand over to Kyiv the NASAMS air defense system.