Indian envoy warns of 'big red line,' days after charges laid in Nijjar case
India's envoy to Canada insists relations between the two countries are positive overall, despite what he describes as 'a lot of noise.'
Russia's theft of Ukrainian grain appears to be ramping up as it continues its war on the country, according to new satellite photos of the Crimean port of Sevastopol.
Two Russia-flagged bulk carrier ships are shown docking and loading up with what is believed to be stolen Ukrainian grain in the images. Ukraine's President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has accused Russia of "gradually stealing" Ukrainian food products and trying to sell them.
The new images from Maxar Technologies, dated May 19 and 21, show the ships -- the Matros Pozynich and the Matros Koshka -- docked next to what appear to be grain silos with grain pouring off of a belt into an open hold. Both ships have now left the port, according to the ship tracking site MarineTraffic.com, with the Matros Pozynich sailing through the Aegean Sea claiming to be on its way to Beirut and the Matros Koshka still in the Black Sea.
It's difficult to know for certain whether the ship is being loaded with stolen Ukrainian grain, but Russia-annexed Crimea produces little grain itself, unlike the agriculturally rich Ukrainian regions of Kherson and Zaporizhzhia immediately to the north. Ukrainian officials and industry sources have told CNN that Russian forces in occupied areas have emptied several silos and trucked the grain south.
Earlier this month, the Matros Pozynich carried out a similar mission: loading up with grain and setting sail out of the Black Sea and into the Mediterranean. It was initially bound for Egypt with its cargo, but it was turned away from Alexandria after a warning from Ukrainian officials, according to the country's government. It was also barred entry to Beirut, eventually docking in Latakia, in Syria, where Russia has for years been propping up the regime of Bashar al-Assad.
At the same time, Russia has been blocking Ukraine from exporting goods from its ports, fuelling fears of a global food crisis.
"The world community must help Ukraine unblock seaports, otherwise the energy crisis will be followed by a food crisis and many more countries will face it," Zelenskyy said Saturday. "Russia has blocked almost all ports and all, so to speak, maritime opportunities to export food -- our grain, barley, sunflower and more. A lot of things."
Last week CNN reported that the U.S. and allies are holding discussions on how to safely develop routes to transport grain from Ukraine amid concerns about global food supplies. Evidence that Russia is stealing grain only complicates those efforts.
Before the war, wheat supplies from Russia and Ukraine accounted for almost 30 per cent of global trade, and Ukraine is the world's fourth-largest exporter of corn and the fifth-largest exporter of wheat, according to the U.S. State Department. The United Nations World Food Program -- which helps combat global food insecurity -- buys about half of its wheat from Ukraine each year and has warned of dire consequences if Ukrainian ports are not opened up.
The ships have capacities of 30,000 metric tons and earlier this month Ukraine's Defence Ministry estimated that some 400,000 tons had been stolen and taken out of Ukraine since Russia's invasion.
Mykola Solsky, Ukraine's minister of Agrarian Policy and Food, said it is "sent in an organized manner in the direction of Crimea. This is a big business that is supervised by people of the highest level."
Russia annexed Crimea in 2014, taking with it the key Black Sea port of Sevastopol. Since launching a renewed invasion in February, Russia has deprived Ukraine access to two key ports: capturing Mariupol, on the Sea of Azov, and targeting and blocking Odessa, also on the Black Sea. Ukraine's inability to export from those ports is not only impacting food levels worldwide but having a devastating impact on the country's economy.
There are an estimated 22 million tons of grain sitting in Ukrainian silos, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said last week.
"The Russian Federation claims falsely that the international community's sanctions are to blame for worsening the global food crisis. Sanctions are not blocking Black Sea ports, trapping ships filled with food, and destroying Ukrainian roads and railways," Blinken said. "Russia is."
Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov previously called allegations Russia was stealing grain from its neighbor "fake news," according to Russian state news agency TASS and other news agencies.
India's envoy to Canada insists relations between the two countries are positive overall, despite what he describes as 'a lot of noise.'
With Donald Trump sitting just feet away, Stormy Daniels testified Tuesday at the former president's hush money trial about a sexual encounter the porn actor says they had in 2006 that resulted in her being paid to keep silent during the presidential race 10 years later.
The U.S. paused a shipment of bombs to Israel last week over concerns that Israel was approaching a decision on launching a full-scale assault on the southern Gaza city of Rafah against the wishes of the U.S.
Footage from dozens of security cameras in the area of Drake’s Bridle Path mansion could be the key to identifying the suspect responsible for shooting and seriously injuring a security guard outside the rapper’s sprawling home early Tuesday morning, a former Toronto homicide detective says.
A chicken farmer near Mattawa made an 'eggstraordinary' find Friday morning when she discovered one of her hens laid an egg close to three times the size of an average large chicken egg.
Susan Buckner, best known for playing peppy Rydell High School cheerleader Patty Simcox in the 1978 classic movie musical 'Grease,' has died. She was 72.
Accused killer Jeremy Skibicki could have a challenging time convincing a judge that he is not criminally responsible for the deaths of four Indigenous women, a legal analyst says.
A Calgary bylaw requiring businesses to charge a minimum bag fee and only provide single-use items when requested has officially been tossed.
Two Nova Scotia men are dead after a boat they were travelling in sank in the Annapolis River in Granville Centre, N.S., on Monday.
An Ontario man says he paid more than $7,700 for a luxury villa he found on a popular travel website -- but the listing was fake.
Whether passionate about Poirot or hungry for Holmes, Winnipeg mystery obsessives have had a local haunt for over 30 years in which to search out their latest page-turners.
Eighty-two-year-old Susan Neufeldt and 90-year-old Ulrich Richter are no spring chickens, but their love blossomed over the weekend with their wedding at Pine View Manor just outside of Rosthern.
Alberta Ballet's double-bill production of 'Der Wolf' and 'The Rite of Spring' marks not only its final show of the season, but the last production for twin sisters Alexandra and Jennifer Gibson.
A mother goose and her goslings caused a bit of a traffic jam on a busy stretch of the Trans-Canada Highway near Vancouver Saturday.
A British Columbia mayor has been censured by city council – stripping him of his travel and lobbying budgets and removing him from city committees – for allegedly distributing a book that questions the history of Indigenous residential schools in Canada.
Three men in Quebec from the same family have fathered more than 600 children.
A group of SaskPower workers recently received special recognition at the legislature – for their efforts in repairing one of Saskatchewan's largest power plants after it was knocked offline for months following a serious flood last summer.
A police officer on Montreal's South Shore anonymously donated a kidney that wound up drastically changing the life of a schoolteacher living on dialysis.