Ukraine war live updates: Blinken urges Moscow to end Black Sea ‘blackmail’; Russia says it thwarted attack on key oil export hub

Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu visited Russian forces in Ukraine, inspecting the military’s forward command center in an unspecified part of territory that Russia is currently occupying, which the defense ministry simply referred to as the “special operation zone.”

Shoigu was briefed by the battlegroup’s commanding officers about “the general situation, the adversary’s maneuvers and the fulfillment of combat tasks in tactical directions,” Russian state news agency Tass reported.

“The Russian defense minister particularly emphasized the need of conducting effective preemptive strikes on adversary troops while pushing them out of their positions. Such measures will allow to save as many lives of Russian servicemen as possible,” Tass cited Russia’s defense ministry as saying.

— Natasha Turak

Kyiv shot down 15 Iranian-made Shahed drones deployed by Russia over the past day and carried out 11 airstrikes against sites holding Russian troops, weapons and anti-aircraft missile systems, the General Staff of the Armed Forces of Ukraine said on Facebook.

The Ukrainian troops said that 40 clashes with Russian forces took place on Thursday, reporting shelling and airstrikes against swathes of Ukrainian territory.

CNBC could not independently confirm those developments.

— Ruxandra Iordache

Russia’s Defense Ministry said Ukrainian forces attempted an overnight attack against its naval base at the Russia’s key oil export hub Novorossiysk.

In Google-translated comments on Telegram, the ministry said the offensive was carried out by unmanned sea boats, which were detected and destroyed. Novorossiysk Mayor Andrey Kravchenko said on Telegram that the vessels “Olenegorsky Miner” and “Suvorovets” thwarted the Ukrainian offensive, according to a Google translation.

Novorossiysk is a main export outlet for Russian and Kazakh seaborne crude.

CNBC could not independently verify developments on the ground.

Attacks against Black Sea ports have picked up since Russia withdrew from the Ukraine grain deal in July, with Moscow also attacking several key Ukraine sites that included the Odesa port in recent days.

— Ruxandra Iordache

U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken has urged Russia to give up its “blackmail” over the Black Sea Grain Initiative — a deal that Moscow allowed to lapse in July and that created a humanitarian corridor for the export of Ukrainian agricultural goods into the global markets.

Since then, clashes have intensified near Black Sea ports, particularly at key Ukrainian hub Odesa.

“Every member of this council, every member of the United Nations, should tell Moscow: Enough; enough using the Black Sea as blackmail; enough treating the world’s most vulnerable people as leverage; enough of this unjustified, unconscionable war,” Blinken said on Thursday at a U.N. Security Council debate on famine and conflict.

“Strengthening food security is essential to realizing the vision of the United Nations Charter. To save generations from the scourge of war and reaffirm the dignity and worth of every single human being.”

— Ruxandra Iordache

U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken will chair a U.N. Security Council meeting at 10 a.m. ET on famine and global food insecurity exacerbated by war and conflicts.

Earlier in the week, the United States took the helm of the United Nations Security Council for the month of August, a scheduled presidency that comes as the international body looks to mitigate the collapse of the Black Sea Grain Initiative.

U.S. Ambassador to the U.N. Linda Thomas-Greenfield told reporters on Tuesday that the Biden administration will prioritize the world’s mounting food crisis triggered in part, by the collapse of the Black Sea Grain Initiative and Russia’s ongoing war in Ukraine.

— Amanda Macias

Ukraine’s prosecutor general is investigating Russian attacks on its agriculture infrastructure since July as potential war crimes, the office told Reuters on Thursday.

— Reuters