The Ministry of Foreign Affairs has said that this morning’s missile strike by the Russians on the port of Odesa calls into question the Ukrainian grain export agreement which was signed the day before.

"It took less than 24 hours for the Russian Federation to launch a missile strike on the territory of the city of Odesa to question the agreement and the promises it made to the UN and Turkey in the document signed yesterday in Istanbul," Oleh Nikolenko, spokesman for the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, on Facebook.

"The Russian missile is Vladimir Putin spitting in the face of UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres and Turkish President Recep Erdoğan, who made a huge effort to reach the deal, and to whom Ukraine is grateful," he added.

Nikolenko said that Ukraine emphasised the need for rigorous implementation of the agreements on resuming the safe export of Ukrainian agricultural produce via the Black Sea from three ports: Odesa, Chornomorsk and Pivdennyi (formerly Yuzhny).

The Ministry of Foreign Affairs is calling on the UN and Turkey to ensure that Russia complies with its obligations with regard to the safe functioning of the grain corridor.