Zelensky postpones foreign visits following Russian offensive

AFP

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky has postponed all upcoming foreign visits, his press secretary said, after Russia's offensive in the north of Kharkiv region.

"Volodymyr Zelenskiy has instructed that all international events scheduled for the coming days be postponed and new dates coordinated," Sergii Nykyforov said on Facebook.

Earlier on Wednesday, US Secretary of State Antony Blinken praised the resilience of Ukraine's grain production in the face of Russian attacks as he toured a US-supported transshipment facility on the outskirts of Kyiv.

Russia has struck ports and infrastructure since the conflict with Ukraine, in February 2022, worsening a global food crisis, but grain exports have recovered after Ukrainian attacks on Russia's Black Sea fleet.

"Before 2022 Ukraine had been one of the breadbaskets of the world, and now it remains that, but only because of that incredible adaptation," Blinken said after watching grain being transferred to a truck for shipping out of Ukraine at a site supported by the US Agency for International Development.

"Getting the Black Sea corridor open again and moving the Russian navy out, finding new routes or expanding old ones like the Danube, like land crossings, and all of that has been the result of Ukrainian determination and ingenuity, but it's also been the result of support that Ukraine's received from the United States."

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