- Vladimir Putin is set to visit Turkey for the first time on official business, marking his first trip to a NATO member country since the conflict in Ukraine began. President Tayyip Erdogan has announced the visit and advised Putin not to take actions that might inflame the Russia-Ukraine conflict.
- He emphasized the importance of the Black Sea Grain Initiative, which he called a “bridge for peace.” The world’s food supply has been harmed by Russia’s destruction of Ukrainian ports and grain silos in the Black Sea.
- Despite a de facto embargo reinstated in mid-July, the attackers wrecked structures in the port of Izmail and stopped ships as they prepared to load up with Ukrainian grain. Since Russia’s blockade of Ukraine’s Black Sea ports in mid-July, the port has served as the primary alternate route for grain shipments out of Ukraine.
- The US has positioned itself as a middleman between NATO and Russia, with Putin and Erdogan having decided to visit Turkey shortly. The Kremlin restated Russia’s prerequisite for rejoining the grain agreement: the implementation of a parallel agreement that would improve the conditions for its own exports of food and fertilizer. These shipments are now immune from sanctions, which the West claims Moscow is attempting to thwart by endangering the world’s food supply.
- Putin, who is wanted for war crimes by the International Criminal Court, has made no official trips outside of the country this year and has only traveled outside of the former Soviet Union once since beginning his invasion.
- Erdogan has expressed the desire to welcome Putin and persuade him to resume the grain agreement. Recent assaults on Ukraine’s grain infrastructure have been characterized by Moscow as reprisal for a Ukrainian attack on a Kerch Strait bridge to Crimea that was being used to supply Russian forces in southern Ukraine.
