Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan discusses grain shipments from Ukraine with his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin during a phone call — Collected MOSCOW, Aug 02 (TASS/AFP): The Kiev regime's terrorist methods aggravate the Ukrainian crisis and delay a peace settlement, Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova told a news briefing.
"The use of terror methods by the Kiev regime is a factor that aggravates the Ukrainian crisis and delays a peace settlement. Also, it is known that weapons and equipment supplied to Ukraine by Western sponsors are often used to carry out terrorist attacks, which makes them direct accomplices to all these crimes," she said.
"I will remind you that the term 'regime sponsoring terrorism' or 'state sponsor of terrorism' is actively used in the West. But this is precisely what they [the West - TASS] are doing, they are sponsoring the terrorist activity of the Kiev regime," Zakharova said.
At the same time, she noted that Ukraine's frequent use of terrorist methods lately was primarily due to the obvious failure of its armed forces' counter-offensive attempts.
Meanwhile, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan called Wednesday on his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin not to escalate tensions, after Moscow struck facilities vital for grain shipments from Ukraine.
Erdogan told Putin during a phone call that no steps should be taken that would escalate tensions, emphasising the significance of a grain deal that he called a "bridge for peace," according to the Turkish leader's office.
The accord, brokered by Turkey and the United Nations, allowed Ukraine to export grain via its Black Sea ports, but it collapsed last month after Moscow withdrew.
President Vladimir Putin asked his Turkish counterpart on Wednesday to help Russia export its grain to African countries vulnerable to food shortages, the Kremlin said.
"The willingness for cooperation with Turkey and other interested states on this issue was expressed" during a call between the two leaders, a Kremlin statement said, in the wake of Moscow's decision to scrap a Turkish-brokered deal allowing Ukraine to export food through the Black Sea.
Ukraine said Wednesday that Russia had struck port infrastructure in Ukraine's southern region of Odesa, targeting facilities used to export grain since the collapse of the deal allowing shipments from the Black Sea.
"On the night of August 2, Russian armed forces carried out a drone attack on Odesa," the general prosecutor's office said in a statement.
"The enemy attacked port facilities and industrial infrastructure of the Danube."
As a result of the attack, a grain elevator, grain silos and warehouses were damaged or destroyed, prosecutors said.
The Izmail district prosecutor's office has opened a probe, the statement added.
Romania's President Klaus Iohannis, whose country borders the southern tip of Ukraine along the Danube, called Russia's repeated attacks on Ukraine's Danube infrastructure "unacceptable", alleging they were "war crimes".
"Russia's continued attacks against the Ukrainian civilian infrastructure on Danube, in the proximity of Romania, are unacceptable," Iohannis posted on social media.
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