Turkey talks on grain blockade were a ‘critical step,’ U.N. chief says

Russia has deported 900,000 to 1.6 million Ukrainian citizens from Russian-occupied regions of Ukraine in a systemic “filtration” operation, Secretary of State Antony Blinken said in a statement Wednesday, in a loud condemnation of Moscow and affirmation of claims that Ukrainian officials have levied for weeks.

Many of those “forcibly deported,” including 260,000 children, some separated from their families, have wound up in isolated regions in Russia’s far east, Blinken said.

“Reports indicate” that Russian forces have taken thousands of children from orphanages in Ukraine and placed them up for adoption in Russia, according to the statement.

ISTANBUL — U.N. Secretary General António Guterres said Wednesday that talks between Ukraine and Russia in Turkey over resuming grain deliveries from Ukraine’s blockaded ports had been “extremely encouraging,” though the discussions had not yielded a final agreement.

The talks, mediated by Turkey and the United Nations, have aimed to free up more than 20 million tons of grain stuck in Ukraine’s Black Sea ports amid sharply rising global food prices and fears of famine in countries that depend on Ukraine’s imports. Logistical issues and recriminations between the warring parties have stymied a resolution of the issue for months. Ukraine accounted for 10 percent of global wheat exports last year.

“Today in Istanbul we have seen a critical step — a step forward — to ensuring the safe and secure export of Ukrainian food products through the Black Sea,” Guterres told reporters in New York. “In a world darkened by global crisis, today at last we have a ray of hope.”

There had been “substantive agreement” on several points of contention, he said, including the issue of mined Ukrainian ports. Kyiv has been fearful of removing the mines without guarantees that their removal would not prompt fresh Russian incursions.

Turkish Defense Minister Hulusi Akar provided more detail, saying Russia and Ukraine had agreed on steps including the establishment of a coordination center in Turkey for the shipments as well as “basic technical issues,” including ensuring navigational safety on agreed-upon shipping routes, according to comments in a defense ministry statement.

The talks had occurred in a “positive and constructive” atmosphere, he said, adding that the parties were “keen to solve this problem.” Negotiations will continue in Turkey next week, when an agreement would be signed, he said.

There was no immediate comment from Russia and Ukraine on the talks.

Guterres said that “more technical work” was needed but that the “momentum is clear.”

“I never like to make predictions,” he said. “We are hoping that we will be able to reconvene very soon, I’m sure next week, and hopefully, we’ll be able to have a final agreement.”

When Russian President Vladimir Putin held the final meeting of his Security Council before launching the invasion of Ukraine, one Kremlin hawk seemed to dominate the room.

Nikolai Patrushev, the powerful Security Council secretary and close Putin ally from their days together at the KGB in St. Petersburg, told the Russian president that the United States was behind tensions in eastern Ukraine and seeking to orchestrate Russia’s collapse. “Our task is to defend the territorial integrity of our country and defend its sovereignty,” Patrushev said in broadcast remarks.

Patrushev, whose position is equivalent to that of the U.S. national security adviser, was expressing a Cold War view that has driven Putin’s war. Ever since Putin ordered the Feb. 24 invasion, blindsiding much of the country’s elite, Patrushev has become a hard-line avatar for a militaristic Russia.

While Putin seemed to flounder in the first three months of the conflict — angry, on the defensive and almost disappearing from view — Patrushev stepped forward to justify the invasion and promote Russia’s war aims. In interviews with Russian newspapers, he predicted that Europe would collapse under the weight of a global food and refugee crisis, while Ukraine would disintegrate into several states.

The Russian-owned Izvestia newspaper on Wednesday reported that Moscow could continue to move sanctioned goods bound for its exclave Kaliningrad through European Union territory, as long as they don’t serve a military purpose. But the European Commission, which has issued additional guidance on transit instructions, denied this claim, citing a misinterpretation of the revised rules.

Reuters later reported that Russia was expecting progress over a possible E.U. deal to allow transit of some sanctioned goods to Kaliningrad, but the problem had not been resolved.

Kaliningrad serves as the headquarters to Moscow’s Baltic Sea Fleet but has no land bridge to the rest of the country. It is on the southern coast of the Baltic Sea between Lithuania and Poland, which are both part of the E.U. and NATO. Lithuania has prohibited the transit of E.U.-sanctioned goods through its territory, and Moscow has warned of retaliation.

Russia threatens Lithuania for enforcing E.U. sanctions on Kaliningrad

New findings published by UNHCR, the United Nations Refugee Agency, show that the majority of refugees from Ukraine hope to return home as soon as possible, but that most are expected to stay in their current host countries until fighting and violence subside.

The survey draws on more than 4,900 interviews with Ukrainian refugees now based in the Czech Republic, Hungary, Moldova, Poland, Romania and Slovakia. It was conducted between mid-May and mid-June.

According to the survey, a majority hope eventually to return to Ukraine, but 65 percent said they plan to stay for now in their current host countries, with another 9 percent planning to go to other host countries within a month.

Sixteen percent of those surveyed said they were planning to return to Ukraine, with 40 percent of them saying they would go in the next month. Another 15 percent of those who expect to return soon said they planned to stay only temporarily.

The report also found that refugees’ plans on whether to stay or move varied according to their region of origin, their period of displacement and where they are based now. A higher proportion of refugees from Kyiv and areas in the west were planning to return than those who arrived from the east and north, the report found.

The self-proclaimed Donetsk People’s Republic (DPR), one of two pro-Russian separatist territories in eastern Ukraine, opened an embassy in Moscow on Tuesday, a month after it sentenced three foreign fighters to death.

Moscow recognized the DPR and the breakaway Luhansk People’s Republic (LPR) as independent states on the eve of its Feb. 24 invasion of Ukraine.

The DPR is not widely recognized. Only Syria, Russia and, as of Wednesday, North Korea regard it as independent, Russia’s RIA Novosti news agency reported.

Natalia Nikonorova, the DPR’s foreign minister, attended Tuesday’s opening of the embassy. The ceremony was described by Reuters as a “low-key” affair without senior Russian officials present.

Nikonorova said the DPR’s decision to impose death sentences on the three soldiers — two Britons and a Moroccan who fought as part of the Ukrainian army and were captured by pro-Russian forces in April — was separate from its bid for diplomatic recognition.

“Yes, it is the highest measure of punishment, but it is in our legislation, and it is not linked to the further process of recognition of the Donetsk People’s Republic by other states,” she said.

KRAMATORSK, Ukraine — No one was coming to rescue Arif Bahirov.

After months of fierce fighting for control of the Luhansk region, a withering Russian assault on what remained of battered Ukrainian military positions threatened to cut off one of the last escape routes from Bahirov’s nearly surrounded hometown of Severodonetsk. Carrying only a small backpack, he began a perilous 50-mile journey by bicycle.

Bahirov, 45, who worked in public relations, knew this “road of life” well from working for months as a volunteer helping to evacuate hundreds of residents of Luhansk, a sprawling region in Ukraine’s east bordering Russia. He had seen plenty of Russian missile attacks targeting cars and trucks out here, but now as he pedaled, he clung to one thought: “No one would shoot a man on a bicycle.”

The death toll in a Russian missile strike on residential buildings in Chasiv Yar has risen to 46, the State Emergency Service of Ukraine said Wednesday, as emergency teams continued to comb the rubble for victims.

A Russian missile struck three buildings in the town in the eastern Donetsk region over the weekend, reducing apartments to dust and sparking an intensive rescue operation. At the scene of the blast lay shattered photo frames and other possessions that once belonged in family homes.

On Sunday, a man who was buried underneath bricks and concrete was found alive by rescuers almost 24 hours after the attack.

But as the days go by and hopes fade that the missing will be found alive, families told the Associated Press they are “waiting for a miracle.”