Ships Bound for Ukraine Will Be Considered Hostile, Russia Says

Follow live news updates on Russia’s war in Ukraine.

The comments by Moscow’s Defense Ministry came after Russia withdrew from a deal allowing Ukraine to ship grain, and after strikes that Ukraine said were aimed at grain infrastructure.

Wheat prices spike after Russia raises tensions in the Black Sea.

Russia strikes Odesa for a second day after withdrawing from the grain deal.

Video suggests that the Wagner leader visited Belarus to address his troops this week.

Britain’s spy master says Putin cut a deal with Prigozhin to end the Wagner mercenaries’ brief revolt.

The Pentagon unveils $1.3 billion for Ukraine, bringing total new U.S. aid this week to $2.3 billion.

The authorities in Crimea report a blast at a military base that closed a major highway.

What Russia Sees: The traitor and the ‘indisputable hero.’

Putin will not attend an August summit in South Africa in person, the Kremlin says.

Two days after Russia pulled out of the deal allowing Ukraine to ship grain through the Black Sea, Moscow took another step to hinder shipping, saying the Russian military would regard any ship bound for Ukraine to be a potential carrier of military cargo and their home countries to be Kyiv’s allies in the war.

The declaration appeared to signal that Moscow would consider commercial ships to be legitimate military targets and the countries where the ships are registered to be aiding Ukraine. While the statement did not say explicitly how Russia’s Navy would respond to a ship bound for Ukraine, the statement will almost certainly deter commercial shipping.

The announcement sent wheat prices rocketing. Chicago wheat futures, a global benchmark for wheat prices, rose by as much as 9 percent following Russia’s statement, their biggest upward percentage move since the war broke out in February of last year. Prices remained 8 percent higher for the day heading into afternoon trading.

“All vessels sailing in the waters of the Black Sea to Ukrainian ports will be regarded as potential carriers of military cargo,” the Defense Ministry said in a statement on the Telegram messaging app. “Accordingly, the countries of such vessels will be considered to be involved in the Ukrainian conflict on the side of the Kyiv regime.” The decision, the ministry said, would take effect at midnight on Wednesday.

In addition, Russia said that it would consider some areas of the northwestern and southeastern parts of the Black Sea dangerous for navigation and that it had withdrawn conventional safety guarantees for sailors. The main ports that Ukraine has used for grain exports, including in the city of Odesa, are situated in the northwestern Black Sea.

In Moscow, President Vladimir V. Putin said Moscow would consider rejoining the grain deal if its demands on its own exports of grain and fertilizer were met. He said the current agreement had “lost all meaning.”

The Kremlin had announced on Monday that it would not extend a deal signed almost a year ago, the Black Sea Grain Initiative, under which Ukraine had been able to ship its grain — one of the country’s most important exports and a significant contributor to the world’s supplies — despite an effective blockade of the Black Sea by Russia’s Navy.

Ukraine’s exports are an important factor in the stability of global grain prices, supplying key Russian trading partners like China and also sending grain to some nations in the Middle East and Africa that face hunger. The U.N. secretary general, António Guterres, said on Monday that he was “deeply disappointed” by the Kremlin’s decision.

After Monday’s announcement, President Volodymyr Zelensky of Ukraine said that he hoped it would be possible to continue exporting grain via the Black Sea despite Russia’s position, under a separate agreement Ukraine signed with Turkey and the United Nations, both of which had brokered the original agreement. While such a plan would have many obstacles to overcome, the statement by the Russian Ministry of Defense, however, would appear to have put it to a definitive end.

Wheat prices had already risen 5 percent over the course of Monday and Tuesday, following Russia’s initial decision to back out of the grain deal. Still, prices remain well below levels reached when the war first began, and are even below levels reached at the start of the year.

Dmitri S. Peskov, a spokesman for the Kremlin, intimated that the decision to regard cargo ships as military targets was intended to prevent Ukraine from hiding military operations under the guise of grain imports and exports.

“Certain risks emerge there without appropriate security guarantees,” he said.

Under the Black Sea Grain Initiative, ships passing through the Bosporus Strait to and from Ukraine have been inspected to make sure they are not carrying any prohibited goods, including military cargo.

— Matthew Mpoke Bigg and Joe Rennison

Russia bombarded the Black Sea port city of Odesa for a second straight night with drones and missiles, setting off loud and prolonged explosions early Wednesday in what Ukrainian officials said was an attack on grain terminals and other critical infrastructure Ukraine needs to ship food to the world.

Ukraine’s air force said that it was one of the largest sustained aerial assaults on Odesa, the country’s largest port, and that several waves of missiles and drones were launched at other cities overnight. Smoke was seen rising over the main port of Odesa as dawn broke.

President Volodymyr Zelensky and other Ukrainian officials called the assault part of a Russian effort to resume its de facto blockade of the Black Sea, after Moscow pulled out of a United Nations-brokered agreement that allowed for Ukrainian grain ships to export food. Russian missiles also hit Odesa on Tuesday in what Moscow claimed was retribution for an attack on a vital bridge to occupied Crimea.

“Russian terrorists deliberately targeted the grain deal’s infrastructure, and every Russian missile is a blow not only to Ukraine, but to everyone in the world who wants a normal and safe life,” Mr. Zelensky said Wednesday on the Telegram messaging app.

At least 30 cruise missiles and 32 attack drones were fired at targets across the country, primarily from the Black Sea, Ukraine’s Air Force said. Ukraine said it had intercepted 14 of the missiles and 23 of the drones.

“It was a hellish night,” Serhiy Bratchuk, a spokesman for the Odesa regional military administration, said in a video message posted on social media. He called the attack “very powerful, truly massive” and said it might have been the largest attack on the city since Russia’s full-scale invasion began.

In Odesa, one intercepted missile caused a large explosion, the blast wave damaging several buildings and injuring civilians, according to the Ukrainian military. Port infrastructure, including a grain and oil terminal, tanks and loading equipment were damaged, the military said. Tobacco and fireworks warehouses were also hit, according to the military. Odesa’s city government said that 10 people needed medical help, including a 9-year-old boy.

The flare-up of tensions around the Black Sea — including an explosion on the Crimean Peninsula — follows Monday’s blast on the Kerch Strait Bridge connecting Crimea to Russia. The bridge, a strategically important link to supply Russian forces in southern Ukraine, was damaged in an apparent Ukrainian attack by naval drones.

Moscow has denied the attacks are related to the suspended grain deal, saying on Tuesday that they were a “mass retaliatory strike” on facilities used to manufacture drones used in attacks against Russia.

The Kremlin issued threats on Tuesday against Kyiv trying to continue shipments of food through the Black Sea, with its spokesman, Dmitri S. Peskov, saying: “Certain risks emerge there without appropriate security guarantees.”

Russia also launched a wave of drones on Wednesday at Kyiv, the capital, but all were destroyed by the city’s air defenses, said Serhiy Popko, the head of the city’s military administration.

Russia’s success in hitting critical infrastructure at the ports around Odesa reflected the difficulties Ukraine faces in trying to protect cities while also safeguarding their industries, military equipment and troops.

“We can cover Odesa ports, Kyiv region, Dnipro, Lviv,” Yurii Ihnat, a spokesman for the Ukrainian Air Force, said in an appearance on Ukrainian television. “But we cannot block all directions from which missiles fly into Ukraine.”

The concentrated attacks on Odesa have been especially challenging for Ukraine given the types of missiles deployed by Russia and the tactics it uses to evade air defenses. Mr. Ihnat said the Russians fired Kh-22 cruise missiles on a ballistic trajectory, making them extremely fast and hard to shoot down, especially when launched from relatively close range. At the same time, he said, drones were used in large numbers in an effort to exhaust air defense systems, making it harder to track the more powerful missiles.

— Marc Santora and Victoria Kim reporting from Odesa, Ukraine, and Seoul

Yevgeny V. Prigozhin, the unruly head of the Wagner mercenary group, appears to have resurfaced in Belarus to deliver a welcome speech to his fighters who had been deployed there as part of a deal that ended his brief mutiny last month, according to a video published on Wednesday by at least three Telegram channels associated with the group.

In the video, filmed at dusk, a man whose silhouette and voice closely resemble Mr. Prigozhin said that the Wagner fighters will stay in Belarus for some time to train its army, with the goal of turning it into the best army in the world outside of Russia.

In the aftermath of the aborted mutiny, the fate of the Wagner group appeared to be in limbo. Last week, President Vladimir V. Putin said that its troops could continue fighting but without their pugnacious leader.

On the video, however, Mr. Prigozhin appears to still be the head of a large group of fighters. He did not tone down his criticism of the Russian top commanders, calling the situation on the front lines in Ukraine a “disgrace” that Wagner fighters “should not participate in.” He also left open the possibility Wagner forces would return to combat in Ukraine.

“We need to wait for the moment when we can prove ourselves fully,” the figure believed to be Prigozhin says on the video, his face never fully shown. “Perhaps we will return to the special military operation, unless we are forced to shame ourselves and our experience.”

The Times verified that the video was filmed at a Wagner camp in the village of Tsel’ near the town of Asipovichy, about 50 miles southeast of the Belarusian capital Minsk. It was filmed on Tuesday evening.

To verify the videos, the Times compared features seen in them — two large buildings and uniquely colored tents — to the same features that appear in satellite imagery captured on Wednesday.

Earlier on Tuesday, the Belarusian monitoring group Hajun Project tracked a jet previously associated with Mr. Prigozhin until it landed at a military airfield south of the capital, Minsk.

Early on Wednesday, after the video at the camp was filmed, the same aircraft was tracked leaving Belarus and flying toward Moscow. The Times previously reported that columns of Wagner Group vehicles arrived at the camp on Monday.

In the video, the man closely resembling Mr. Prigozhin is seen speaking in front of hundreds of fighters who clapped and whistled. After finishing, he turns the floor over to Dmitri Utkin, the mercenary whose nom de guerre, Wagner, gave the group its name. “This is not the end,” Mr. Utkin says. “This is the beginning of the biggest task in the world.”

Last week, the Belarusian Ministry of Defense said that Wagner fighters were training its military in defense and battlefield tactics, and state television reported the mercenaries had already begun instructing regular troops near Asipovichy. The report could not be independently confirmed.

Since Mr. Prigozhin abruptly halted his mutiny on June 24, the Kremlin has publicly worked to to diminish Mr. Prigozhin’s role in Russian politics and downplay his part in the war effort. His media empire, including several news websites, has been shut down. Russian state television has portrayed him as a petty and immoral thug hoarding cash, weapons, passports, and possibly drugs.

— Ivan Nechepurenko and Riley Mellen

The chief of Britain’s intelligence agency, MI6, said on Wednesday that President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia had “cut a deal” with Yevgeny V. Prigozhin, the founder of the Wagner mercenary group, during Mr. Prigozhin’s failed rebellion last month.

The comments from Richard Moore, the head of MI6, in a rare speech in Prague at an event hosted by Politico, offer insights from a Western intelligence official into the stunning but short-lived revolt by Mr. Prigozhin last month.

The Wagner leader staged a mutiny against Russia’s military last month, which saw his mercenary forces marching toward the capital before abruptly halting. More than two weeks later, the Kremlin disclosed that Mr. Prigozhin and other Wagner leaders had met with Mr. Putin for three hours in the days after the rebellion ended.

“I think he probably feels under some pressure,” Mr. Moore said of Mr. Putin, speaking at the British ambassador’s residence in the Czech capital. “Prigozhin was his creature, utterly created by Putin, and yet he turned on him. He really didn’t fight back against Prigozhin; he cut a deal to save his skin using the good offices of the leader of Belarus.”

Mr. Moore also reflected on the head-spinning nature of the Wagner forces’ sudden march toward Moscow, the swiftness with which they stopped, and Mr. Prigozhin’s seeming escape — so far — from the grim fate of many Kremlin critics.

His location has been largely uncertain since the revolt. Mr. Prigozhin is known to have spent several days in Russia afterward, and video posted on the Telegram messaging app on Wednesday appears to show him in Belarus. The New York Times verified that the video was taken on Tuesday night at a makeshift Wagner camp about 50 miles southeast of the Belarusian capital, Minsk.

“Prigozhin started off that day as a traitor at breakfast, he had been pardoned by supper, and then a few days later, he was invited for tea,” Mr. Moore told the audience. “So, there are some things that even the chief of MI6 finds a little bit difficult to try and interpret, in terms of who’s in and who’s out.”

Last week, Mr. Putin said that Wagner troops could continue fighting alongside the Russian Army in Ukraine, but without their leader.

“He is clearly under pressure,” Mr. Moore said of Mr. Putin. “You don’t have a group of mercenaries advance up the motorway toward Rostov and get to within 125 kilometers of Moscow unless you have not quite predicted that was going to happen.”

Mr. Moore was not the only British official weighing in on Mr. Putin’s situation on Wednesday. James Cleverly, Britain’s foreign minister, speaking at the Aspen Security Forum, said that no matter “how Putin attempts to spin it, an attempted coup is never a good look.”

He also said that the details of fissures among the Russian elites were limited but that there are “indicators that things are not well.”

Russia ultimately withdrew from Afghanistan because internal Russian pressure became insurmountable, Mr. Cleverly said, referring a decade-long conflict that ended in 1989. “And we are seeing some of the evidence that a similar thing is happening,” he added.

Mr. Cleverly said the rebellion underscored the falsity of Mr. Putin’s assertions that Russia would be more committed to a long war in Ukraine than the West would be. “It proved the lie that underpins Putin’s strategic rationale,” he said.

“What Prigozhin said out loud is what we all instinctively knew: This was an entirely unjustified and uncalled-for invasion,” he added. “This was driven by the ego and ambition of Vladimir Putin. There was never any risk or threat to the Russian homeland or the Russian people.”

— Megan Specia and Julian E. Barnes reporting from London and Aspen, Colo.

The United States will send $1.3 billion in financial assistance to Kyiv in order to purchase a host of new military equipment and ammunition, the Pentagon said on Wednesday. The new security support followed several U.S. announcements of humanitarian and other aid, and brought the total new U.S. commitment to Ukraine this week alone to $2.3 billion.

The United States has invested more in Ukraine’s defense and recovery than any other country, according to a tracker compiled by the Keil Institute in Germany. That data shows that total U.S. aid to Ukraine since shortly before the war had surpassed $70 billion by the end of May, including military support, humanitarian aid and financial commitments.

The new funds announced by the Pentagon will buy four additional air-defense missile systems called NASAMS, which are jointly produced by the United States and Norway; more 152-millimeter artillery shells for Ukraine’s older Soviet-era howitzers; anti-tank missiles and one-way attack drones; as well as equipment for clearing land mines.

Fighting through Russian anti-tank and anti-personnel land mines are a major obstacle for Ukrainian forces pressing their slow-moving counteroffensive, leading to many casualties. Gen. Mark A. Milley, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, addressed that problem on Tuesday following a virtual meeting of the Ukraine Defense Contact Group — a coalition of about 50 nations that meets monthly to discuss military and humanitarian aid for Kyiv, which includes all NATO countries as well as many of the United States’ non-NATO allies.

“The casualties that the Ukrainians are suffering on this offensive are not so much from Russian air power. They’re from minefields,” General Milley said, noting that Russian troops with antitank weapons were poised to engage Ukrainian forces trying to cross mined areas. “So the problem to solve is minefields.”

During the briefing, the general pushed back on the idea that Ukraine’s counteroffensive, which began in early June, was faltering.

“It’s a tough fight. It’s a very difficult fight,” General Milley said. “It started about five or six weeks ago, and the various war games that were done ahead of time had predicted certain levels of advance, and that has slowed down. Why? Because that’s the difference between war on paper and real war. These are real people in real machines that are out there really clearing real minefields, and they’re really dying.”

General Milley said that the Pentagon had already provided Ukrainian forces with explosive charges specifically designed to clear paths through those minefields and would continue to do so.

The drones Ukraine will buy, called Phoenix Ghost and Switchblade, are light enough to be carried by soldiers in the field. Once launched, they are flown via remote control and can surveil a target before crashing into it and exploding on impact.

The funds will also purchase a number of vehicles, secure communication equipment and devices for countering Russian drones and electronic jamming equipment.

The Pentagon’s announcement of the new aid package came during a week in which the United States also announced successive humanitarian, agricultural and economical aid packages through its Agency for International Development, or U.S.A.I.D., that totaled about $1 billion.

The leader of the agency, Samantha Power, said on Monday during a visit to Kyiv that the U.S. would send $500 million to help fund food, medical and shelter assistance for people affected by the war. On Tuesday, a day after Russia refused to extend the Black Sea grain deal, U.S.A.I.D. announced $250 million in aid to support Ukrainian farmers. And on Wednesday, the agency announced an additional $230 million to help Ukraine’s economy recover from the war.

Anushka Patil contributed reporting.

— John Ismay reporting from Washington

A roaring, smoky fire at a military training ground on Crimea forced the evacuation of thousands of villagers and the closure of a main highway in the early hours of Wednesday.

Several Russian military bloggers and some news reports in Ukraine said that Ukrainian projectiles had ignited an ammunition dump on a military shooting range, and that it continued to burn for hours after it first erupted. The Kremlin-appointed head of Crimea, Sergei Aksyonov, also said the fire was raging at a military training camp.

President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia weighed in with brief remarks from a remote meeting with senior government officials that seemed to indicate that exploding ammunition was involved. “Everything will burn out and end, but you have to be very careful,” Mr. Putin said, according to a report on the Telegram channel of Zvezda News, the news agency run by Russia’s Ministry of Defense.

Although Russian officials said that the cause of the blaze was still under investigation, they also reported heavy Ukrainian drone activity in the same part of eastern Crimea just before reports of explosions and fire. A few other reports said that long-range Ukrainian missiles had struck the target.

Ukraine made no outright claims of responsibility.

Mr. Aksyonov, the Russian-appointed head of the peninsula, wrote on his Telegram channel that some 2,000 people were evacuated from four villages near the training ground in the Kirovsky district.

The fire also forced the closure of the Tavrida highway, the main, four-lane highway that runs from Simferopol to the Kerch Strait Bridge, which was hit and badly damaged in what appeared to be a Ukrainian marine drone strike early Monday.

That Mr. Putin weighed in on the attack seemed to indicate that the Kremlin wanted to establish that everything was under control despite the fact that two Ukrainian attacks in three days had interrupted transportation links on the Crimean Peninsula.

Ukraine has made no secret that among the goals of its counteroffensive, begun over a month ago, is the disruption of transport and other military activity on Crimea, which is a major transit point for military supplies headed into the occupied areas of southern Ukraine. Russia seized the peninsula from Ukraine in 2014, and it is the home base of Russia’s Black Sea fleet.

Because of a translation error, an earlier version of this article incorrectly stated how some Russian officials, including President Vladimir V. Putin, had referred to the blast site. They referred to the site as a military training ground, not a landfill. (The basic Russian word for landfill is the same as the word for training ground; the two are usually differentiated by adjectives.)

How we handle corrections

— Neil MacFarquhar

We’re going to regularly break down how Russia is selling the war at home, as TV and other propaganda outlets create a distorted reality of what’s happening and who is responsible. Today, we look at how Russia portrayed the aftermath of a mutiny against the military.

Looking back on a mercenary march that reached within 125 miles of Moscow, even one of the most famous faces of Russian state media had to concede it was a “difficult” week.

But the TV host, Dmitry Kiselyov, spun the week’s dramatic events — a mutiny by Wagner mercenary forces, two angry speeches by Russia’s otherwise absent president, and the sudden exile of Wagner’s leader — into causes for celebration, despite it being the most significant challenge to President Vladimir V. Putin’s rule in years.

“On the one hand, it was a clearly a betrayal,” Mr. Kiselyov said in early July on “News of the Week,” Russia’s flagship political program on state TV. “On the other hand, it showed the unity of the people and all levels of power around the president of Russia.”

Mr. Putin, he said, had actually saved the day.

The Kremlin itself put Mr. Putin on display in one appearance after another, surrounding him with triumphant imagery this week even though he remained out of sight for most of the mutiny, and had allowed rivalries to fester publicly for months between Mr. Prigozhin and Russia’s military leaders.

Russian state media and sympathetic bloggers were quick to use Mr. Putin’s rush of appearances to show him as a man of the people, with some even noting how rare it was for the president to appear close to members of the public. (For over three years, the Kremlin has enforced a “clean zone” around the president, forcing people to quarantine before coming near him, and he has kept even world leaders at a distance in some meetings.)

But after Mr. Putin traveled to Dagestan to tout tourism opportunities in the Caucasus, Mr. Kiselyov said that the president was “visibly drawn to the people” in a “highly emotional” moment. A state TV reporter, Pavel Zarubin, provided shaky cellphone footage and glowing commentary.

The Kremlin later announced that Mr. Putin had actually met Yevgeny V. Prigozhin, the leader of the Wagner mercenaries, just days after the mutiny. But while state media had portrayed the president as a beloved hero, Mr. Prigozhin was cast as a traitor whose ego and greed had led him to challenge the military, the state and the president himself.

Mr. Kiselyov said that Mr. Prigozhin “went crazy” for money, raising speculation that the mercenary leader was going to lose lucrative Defense Ministry contracts for his other business: food services. And the TV host compared him to several other rebels of Russian history — only mentioning those that ended in grim failures.

Sarah Kerr contributed production.

— Alan Yuhas

South African officials have been wrestling for months with a dilemma that thrust them into the cross hairs of a faraway war: Russia’s president, Vladimir V. Putin, a close ally, was set to attend an important diplomatic summit in their country, yet they would be legally obliged to arrest him because he is wanted by an international court that has accused him of war crimes in Ukraine.

With the August summit fast approaching, it seemed that South Africa had to choose between burning bridges with Russia or damaging relations with the United States and other Western nations, major trading partners that have grown increasingly irritated by South Africa’s warm relations with Moscow.

But on Wednesday, Mr. Putin gave South Africa a way out.

President Cyril Ramaphosa announced that Mr. Putin had, by “mutual agreement,” decided not to attend the summit in person, and would send his foreign minister, Sergey V. Lavrov, in his place. Russian state media said that Mr. Putin would participate via videoconference in the summit, a long-planned meeting of the heads of state of Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa, a bloc known as BRICS.

While this decision eases South Africa’s immediate dilemma, the country is still walking a shaky and very public tightrope as it tries to maintain strong ties with each of its superpower allies when they are at odds with one another.

South Africa has faced withering criticism from the United States for refusing to condemn Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. American officials have in addition accused South Africa of providing arms to Russia, a claim that the government has denied and that Mr. Ramaphosa said was being investigated.

Critics at home have accused Mr. Ramaphosa, who faces a tough re-election contest next year, of taking a soft stance toward Russia that could hurt South Africa economically. American lawmakers and government officials have suggested that the U.S. should consider revoking trade benefits for South Africa and rethink the alliance between the countries all together. Hosting Mr. Putin would only have inflamed those demands.

Mr. Putin is the subject of an arrest warrant by the International Criminal Court, which accuses him of being responsible for the abduction of Ukrainian children and their deportation to Russia. As a signatory to the court, South Africa would have been required to arrest the Russian president if he set foot on its soil.

Yet Mr. Putin had for months insisted that he would attend the summit in person, rejecting entreaties to stay home or attend by video. But he softened his stance after the instability set off last month by the brief revolt organized by the leader of the Wagner network, Yevgeny Prigozhin, according to a South African government official who requested anonymity to discuss internal deliberations.

Mr. Putin “became easier to persuade as a result of the recent domestic problems he is having,” said the official.

A spokesman for Mr. Ramaphosa, Vincent Magwenya, said he was unaware of whether the revolt had influenced Mr. Putin’s decision but that it was the result of lengthy deliberations.

South African officials have said in recent months that they feared that the question over Mr. Putin’s attendance at the BRICS meeting threatened to overshadow the agenda. BRICS has fashioned itself as an alternative to a world order centered on the U.S. and Europe, and a voice for nations that are not among the world’s superpowers.

BRICS has pushed for more developing countries to have seats on the U.N. Security Council, for rich nations to provide more funding to developing countries to address climate change, and for more equitable distribution of Covid-19 vaccines.

As the bloc’s newest and smallest member, South Africa is trying to wield more influence globally and fashion itself as the voice of Africa, analysts say.

South African officials have accused Western nations of having a double standard for calling to arrest Mr. Putin for war crimes in Ukraine, while escaping action by the international criminal court over the invasion of Iraq and Afghanistan.

Mr. Ramaphosa’s political party, the African National Congress, said as recently as Wednesday morning that it wished that Mr. Putin would attend the summit. But the party applauded the ultimate outcome. It will “let the BRICS summit focus on the pressing issues in the geopolitical situation,” said Mahlengi Bhengu, the A.N.C.’s national spokeswoman, in a news briefing on Wednesday.

While many who wanted Mr. Putin to attend may be disappointed, she said, “I do think that wisdom may have prevailed amongst our leaders.”

Mr. Ramaphosa had warned in a court affidavit made public on Tuesday that his country could suffer severe consequences if it arrested Mr. Putin. Russia “has made it clear” that an arrest “would be a declaration of war,” Mr. Ramaphosa said in the 32-page affidavit.

The Kremlin denied having made any direct threats toward South Africa, but on Wednesday, its spokesman, Dmitri S. Peskov, told reporters that “it’s absolutely clear to everyone what an attempt to encroach on the Russian leader means.”

South Africa’s largest opposition political party, the Democratic Alliance, had asked a court in Pretoria, the nation’s executive capital, to force the government to arrest Mr. Putin if he attended the summit, scheduled for Aug. 22 to 24.

The leader of the alliance, John Steenhuisen, praised Wednesday’s announcement.

“It averts a potential international crisis,” he said.

In 2015, South Africa faced international condemnation when it refused to arrest the then-president of Sudan, Omar Hassan al-Bashir, who was wanted by the international court on charges of war crimes and genocide arising from atrocities in the western province of Darfur. South Africa permitted Mr. al-Bashir to fly in and out of Johannesburg unimpeded for a meeting of the African Union. He is still wanted by the court.

Lynsey Chutel contributed reporting from Johannesburg, and Ivan Nechepurenko from Tbilisi, Georgia.

— John Eligon Reporting from Johannesburg

Iryna Pustovarova, 19, raced to a cemetery on a bluff high above the sprawling port in the southern Ukrainian city of Odesa, tears streaming down her face.

One of the dozens of Russian missiles fired at the city before dawn on Wednesday had sailed past the cranes and warehouses in the shipyard and crashed into her father’s burial site. Even the dead, she said, cannot rest in peace in Ukraine.

“He was the most precious person in my life,” she said. Since her father, Oleksandr, died six years ago from cancer, she would visit his grave often. “He was my guardian angel.”

Now, there was a crater where her father was buried, but she could not get close enough to see the scale of the desecration. The area was cordoned off by the police until bomb disposal technicians could arrive and ensure that there was no unexploded ordnance.

“They will write in the Russian news that they blew up our tanks and military equipment,” she said. “But you can see — it is just a cemetery.”

“I hate them,” she said of the Russians. “I just hate them.”

After two nights of what local officials and residents said was among the most furious assaults aimed at the city since Moscow launched its full-scale invasion more than 16 months ago, it was a common sentiment in the still predominantly Russian-speaking city.

At resort hotels that flank the port, guests were rushed through kitchens and past sun loungers to shelters.

Drones shot down by antiaircraft gunners lit up the night sky like a deadly fireworks display as families huddled in corridors and bathrooms. As the sun rose, smoke spiraled over the city’s oldest port after debris and strikes set off blazes.

Svitlana and Volodymyr Lutvunenko, both 53, came to Odesa from Kyiv, the Ukrainian capital, in the hopes of finding a bit of rest and respite.

“Last night and tonight were so loud,” Ms. Lutvunenko said. Adding to the stress, machine-gun fire echoed from the port on Tuesday in what locals believed was a training exercise. But they were somewhat used to restless nights, they said, since they have become accustomed to the frequent attacks aimed at the capital.

Mikhailenko Oleksandr, 42, the director at an oncology hospital near the port, said that while Odesa had been targeted many times, the past few nights had definitely been among the worst.

The hospital’s staff had to race to get 360 patients to safety, he said. Six people in intensive care had to shelter in hallways away from windows, and the rest went to bunkers.

Windows were blown out in several buildings in the medical complex, which is only a few hundred yards from the cemetery where the missile fell. No one was injured, Mr. Oleksandr said, but everyone was exhausted and on edge. The blast was so powerful that it sent crosses from the burial ground into the hospital yard.

“These were the worst nights I can remember,” he said. “Definitely the worst in the last six months.”

Daria Mitiuk contributed reporting.

— Marc Santora reporting from Odesa, Ukraine

The last two nights have brought some of the most furious Russian aerial assaults on Odesa, the southern Ukrainian port city, of the nearly 17-month-long war. The city on the Black Sea has long been Ukraine’s link to the global economy and home to its busiest ports.

With Russia’s withdrawal this week from an internationally backed wartime agreement that allowed for Ukraine to ship grain across the Black Sea, much of it from Odesa, the city’s importance has again come into focus.

Here is a look at Odesa and its role in the war:

Established in 1794 by the empress Catherine the Great on land conquered from the Ottoman Empire on the site of the Black Sea fortress town of Khadzhibei, Odesa holds economic, symbolic and strategic significance.

BELARUS

RUSSIA

Kyiv

Lviv

UKRAINE

MOLDOVA

Mariupol

Mykolaiv

Kherson

ROMANIA

Odesa

Sea of

Azov

CRIMEA

Black Sea

100 miles

By The New York Times

In 1855, Robert Sears’ guide to the Russian Empire declared, “There is perhaps no town in the world in which so many different tongues may be heard as in the streets and coffeehouses of Odessa.” He wrote that the city included “Russians, Tartars, Greeks, Jews, Poles, Italians, Germans, French, etc.”

In many ways, Odesa represents the antithesis of President Vladimir V. Putin’s brand of Russian ethnic nationalism. But for Mr. Putin, who views himself as on a historic mission to rebuild the Russian Empire, Odesa holds a special place in his war of conquest.

In the first weeks after Mr. Putin ordered the full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022 — as his military rained missiles down on cities and towns across the nation — Odesa was left largely unscathed. The first reported bombing of the city was not until nearly a month after the invasion began and it was directed at the city’s outskirts. No casualties were reported.

Moscow had hoped to quickly topple the Ukrainian government in Kyiv, sending columns of fighters toward the capital in the early days of the invasion in an attempt to seize it. Russian warships also menaced the coast, but the Kremlin appeared intent on claiming Odesa without ruining the city known as “the pearl of the Black Sea.”

Russia’s forces were driven back from Kyiv, but even as its military campaign has been met by repeated setbacks — and as its forces are now trying mainly to cling onto land captured in the first weeks of the war — it has continued to try and ravage the Ukrainian economy by exercising a de facto naval blockade of the ports in and around Odesa.

Moscow is no longer intent on cutting off Ukraine’s ports simply by blocking ships from leaving, Ukrainian officials said after the latest aerial assault against Odesa on Wednesday. By targeting the city’s shipping facilities with missiles and drones, Ukrainian officials said, Mr. Putin wants to destroy the infrastructure that allows Ukraine, a major grain exporter, to provide food to the world.

The three ports that ring Odesa are Ukraine’s largest and include the only deepwater port in the country. Before the war, about 70 percent of Ukraine’s total imports and exports were carried out by sea, and nearly two-thirds of that trade moved through the ports of Odesa.

Under the Black Sea Grain Initiative, brokered last year by the United Nations and Turkey, Ukrainian ships set sail from the ports of Odesa and other cities, past Russia’s blockade, carrying food needed to keep global prices stable. Now that Russia has unilaterally withdrawn from the deal, saying it is one-sided in Ukraine’s favor, Moscow “does not guarantee security” of ships traveling across the sea, said Vasyl Bodnar, Ukraine’s ambassador to Turkey.

“And this means that they will attack ports, infrastructure and possibly ships,” he warned, speaking on national television.

With the main port now closed and coming under attack, Odesa is in a strange state of limbo, said Dmytro Barinov, the deputy head of the Ukrainian Sea Ports Authority. The famed Potemkin Stairs — a staircase of 192 steps that lead from the grand streets of the city to the gritty port — are closed off, guarded by soldiers on both sides and ringed with barbed wire.

“The working port means the life for Odesa,” Mr. Barinov said.

— Marc Santora reporting from Odesa, Ukraine

THE BATTLE: Since Ukraine launched its counteroffensive last month, attention has focused on its attempt to break through Russian defenses in the south and on intense fighting in the east around Bakhmut, a city Ukraine aims to retake. North of Bakhmut, however, Moscow is attempting its own advance along a section of the front line that runs roughly between the towns of Kupiansk, in the Kharkiv region, and Svatove, in Luhansk.

THE LATEST: Russian forces have shelled villages along the front line east of Kupiansk, the Ukrainian military’s general staff said on Wednesday, adding that its forces were “firmly holding defense.” A day earlier, Russia’s Defense Ministry said that its forces had advanced by about 1.2 miles along the front line east of the town. Russian pro-war military bloggers have also claimed that Moscow’s forces have captured the village of Novoselivske, which is 10 miles northwest of Svatove, although the claim could not be independently verified.

Oleksandr Skoryk, a member of the Kharkiv regional council, acknowledged on national television this week that, “unfortunately, there is an advance on their side,” referring to the Russians, and that Ukrainian fighters were facing difficult conditions in the area. And Serhiy Cherevaty, a spokesman for Ukrainian forces fighting in the east of the country, said in a radio broadcast that Russian forces had amassed as many as 100,000 troops along the front line east of Kupiansk.

WHY IT MATTERS: Military experts say that Russia may be trying to force Ukraine to redeploy troops to reinforce positions north of Bakhmut, far from the focal points of its counteroffensive, with the aim of leaving other areas exposed. It is a tactic that Ukraine has often used in its defense against Russia’s invasion last year.

A deputy Ukrainian defense minister, Hanna Malyar, said this week that Russian shelling in the Donetsk region and the fighting around Kupiansk and Svatove is “to stretch our forces so that we cannot concentrate on the area where we are conducting the offensive.” One of Moscow’s specific aims, she said, was to distract Ukrainian forces from their attempt to retake ground around Bakhmut, around 57 miles south of Svatove.

But she added, speaking on national television, “We are responding quickly to changes in the operational situation.”

— Matthew Mpoke Bigg

Clouds of dust follow the buggy tearing along a dirt track, its engine revving as it speeds up a steep hill then briefly catches air coming off the top of it.

The scene is reminiscent of a “Mad Max” film, but the stakes are higher than a Hollywood fantasy.

This is a combat vehicle for Ukraine’s armed forces, and Volodymyr Sadyk, 46, is testing its performance before sending it off to the front lines.

Made from salvaged parts and welded metal, Mr. Sadyk's buggies are mostly used to evacuate wounded soldiers, but are also used in combat with mounted machine guns, he said.

“Buggies can drive on any landscape,” making them useful to Ukrainian frontline troops fighting in the shell-shattered terrain of places like the Donbas region in Ukraine’s east, he said.

Military and heavily armored vehicles can quickly get stuck when going off-road, Mr. Sadyk said, or can be blocked when a road is ripped open by shelling.

“These buggies don’t need roads,” he said.

Mr. Sadyk and his mechanics test the buggies on deep sand, steep hills, dense trees and ditches. Building the vehicles was just a hobby before the war, but turned into a mission after Russia launched its full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022.

They have produced more than 80 buggies since then, Mr. Sadyk said.

Four more were in production at a workshop in Ukraine’s far western Chernivtsi region on a recent afternoon. Inside the hangar-like space, sunlight filtered through the high roof as the sounds of clanking metal and buzz saws mingled with Ukrainian pop music coming from a small radio in the corner.

Sparks flew as a mechanic in a red helmet welded the exterior frame of one buggy and a colleague sanded the metal of another that had been flipped on its side.

Mr. Sadyk said his mechanics watch YouTube videos of buggy production in the United States, marveling at “how easy everything is there,” he said.

“But here,” he trailed off. “We fight for every engine.”

Donations pay for the vehicles, which cost $6,500 for a two-seater and $15,000 for a new model that can seat six to eight people. Each buggy takes a week to make.

That day, Mr. Sadyk said, two more buggies would be ready to be taken in the direction of Bakhmut in eastern Ukraine, where fierce fighting is underway.

Cassandra Vinograd contributed reporting.

— Evelina Riabenko and Finbarr O’Reilly reporting from Chernivtsi region, Ukraine

The backlash was swift on Monday after Russia refused to extend a deal that allowed Ukraine to export millions of tons of grains, with experts warning that it would help drive food prices higher for the poorest nations.

“The timing of this suspension is nothing short of cruel given that millions of people in dozens of countries are already suffering from double digit food inflation,” the chief economist of the United Nations’ World Food Program, Arif Husain, said. “We must find ways to make food available and affordable for the most vulnerable people and countries.”

In a rebuttal to criticism of Russia for pulling out of the deal, the country’s deputy U.N. ambassador, Dmitry Polyanskiy, said that only about 3 percent of Ukrainian grain exports under the pact had gone to low-income countries. He said the arrangement had lost its humanitarian purpose and become strictly commercial, to the sole benefit of Ukraine.

But the supply of grain from Ukraine has always been more about making grain affordable, both for those nations and for aid organizations, then direct sales to poor nations. The deal, formally known as the Black Sea Grain Initiative, restored a flow of supplies from Ukraine, one of the world’s largest grain exporters, lowering global food commodity prices that had spiked following Russia’s full-scale invasion in February 2022.

According to a database maintained by the U.N., 98 percent of the deal’s shipments went to commercial buyers, mostly in countries considered high or upper-middle income. Almost a quarter of the deal’s exports went to China. A fifth went to Spain.

The remainder — which is slightly less than the 3 percent the Russian diplomat claimed — was bought by the World Food Programme, which focuses on emergency food supplies. According to the United Nations, the program sourced 80 percent of its global wheat supply from Ukraine during the period of the grain deal, up from previous years. That enabled it to send wheat to eight nations: Afghanistan, Djibouti, Ethiopia, Kenya, Somalia, Sudan, Turkey and Yemen.

Though a small portion of the grain’s shipments go directly to nations struggling with food insecurity, when prices are lower, poorer countries can afford to buy more grain themselves.

Wheat prices dropped by almost 50 percent between May 2022 — when they peaked — and May of this year, according to the International Monetary Fund. On Monday, after Russia said it would not extend the deal, wheat prices fluctuated, and on Tuesday, they rose slightly. While some analysts say that Ukraine has developed enough alternative shipping routes to blunt the loss of the Black Sea lanes, others remain convinced that prices will jump.

David Laborde, the director of the Agrifood Economics division at the U.N.’s Food and Agriculture Organization, which works to increase food production and nutrition in countries with food insecurity, said that prices worldwide would fluctuate depending on whether Ukraine’s exports remained on the market.

— Gaya Gupta