TOP HEADLINES

· Russia will resume its participation in a Ukrainian grain export deal on Wednesday, ending a temporary hold-up of the United Nations (UN) brokered agreement which had raised fears that a global food crisis could return.

· President Vladimir Putin had told his Turkish counterpart by telephone that Moscow would only consider its resumption after an investigation into drone attacks on the Crimean port of Sevastopol. However, Russia's defense ministry said it had received written guarantees from Kyiv not to use the Black Sea grain corridor for military operations.

· Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy on Tuesday night called for a long-term defense of its grain export corridor, saying "Russia must clearly be made aware that it will receive a tough response from the world to any steps to disrupt our food exports."

· Russian security services have detained a Ukrainian citizen on suspicion of planning to "sabotage" a power line in Crimea. The man in his 40s had been found carrying diagrams of power lines and explosive devices, Russia's Federal Security Service (FSB) said, adding it suspected he had been recruited by Ukrainian intelligence.

· Russia will summon Britain's ambassador to Moscow over what it said was the involvement of British specialists in a Ukrainian drone strike on the Black Sea fleet.

· After firing an estimated 100 missiles on Monday and Tuesday, Russia has continued its aerial bombardment on Ukrainian cities including Kyiv, with some hitting power stations and knocking out electricity and water supplies. While Ukraine said it had shot down most of the missiles, nine regions are experiencing power cuts so as to stabilize the power grid.

· Yevgeny Prigozhin, a Putin ally and the founder of the Wagner private military group, has praised Ukraine's president as a strong and confident leader who should not be underestimated.

· Russia has told civilians to leave an area along the Dnipro River in the Ukrainian province of Kherson, a major extension of an evacuation order that Kyiv said essentially means the forced depopulation of Russian occupied territories. Evacuations have increased in the Russian-held port of Kherson as Ukrainian forces advanced to the north and east of the strategic city.

· Poland will build a razor-wire fence on its border with Russia's Kaliningrad, asserting that the enclave might become a site for illegal migration. The defense ministry cited security concerns, referring to last autumn when thousands of African and Middle Eastern asylum seekers tried to cross the Belarus border into Poland. This is despite Poland reporting no such entries from Kaliningrad into Poland in October.

IN DETAIL

Russia resumes participation in grain deal

Russia will resume its participation in a deal to free up vital grain exports from Ukraine after suspending its involvement over the weekend, a move that raised fears of exacerbating a global food crisis.

The Russian defense ministry said on Wednesday that thanks to the involvement of the United Nations and Turkiye, it had received written guarantees from Kyiv not to use the Black Sea grain corridor for military operations against Russia.

"The Russian Federation considers that the guarantees received at the moment appear sufficient, and resumes the implementation of the agreement," the ministry statement said.

The move follows a phone call between Russian President Vladimir Putin and Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan on Tuesday, and repeated conversations between their defense ministers.

Russia had suspended its involvement because it said it could not guarantee the safety of civilian ships crossing the Black Sea following an attack on its fleet there. Ukraine claims this was a false pretext.

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Ships had continued to move Ukrainian grain on the route despite the suspension, but there were concerns that it would have been unlikely to continue because insurance companies were not giving new contracts due to Moscow's move.

Anakara, which helped broker the July grain deal with the UN, had earlier laid set out Russia's terms for the resumption of the deal, saying Moscow had wanted to secure its own exports of grain and fertilizers.

"Russia has some security demands after the recent attack on its ships," Cavusoglu said of the weekend attack on Russia's Black Sea Fleet, adding that it was also concerned about its own fertilizer and grain exports.

President Zelenskyy said on Tuesday the world should respond firmly to any Russian attempts to disrupt Ukraine's export corridor, after a shutdown of the Black Sea passage earlier in the war exacerbated global food shortages.

"A reliable and long-term defense is needed for the grain corridor," Zelenskyy said in a late night address. 

"Russia must clearly be made aware that it will receive a tough response from the world to any steps to disrupt our food exports," he added. "At issue here clearly are the lives of tens of millions of people."