Ukraine says Russia creating food "catastrophe" that could starve millions in bid to reopen Black Sea ports
CBSN
Mykolaiv, Ukraine — Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said Wednesday night that Russia's naval blockade of his country's southern ports could lead to starvation for millions of people around the world. CBS News correspondent Chris Livesay visited Odesa this week, where some 20 million tons of wheat and corn are sitting idle, ready to leave the port but blocked by Russian warships and mines.
The top official in the neighboring Mykolaiv region — home to another key port that Russia has been hammering with artillery for weeks — said Vladimir Putin's military is attacking food in a bid to scare the world into reopening the Black Sea to shipping.
Mykolaiv governor Vitaliy Kim said Moscow wanted to make world food shortages "look like a catastrophe… because they are trying to trade about opening the Black Sea."
Russia launched a barrage of missiles at Ukraine Thursday in its first major retaliation for Ukraine's attack earlier in the week on a military facility in the Russian region of Bryansk. That strike saw the Ukrainians use American-made and supplied long-range missiles known as ATACMS, which President Biden had given the Ukrainian forces permission to fire deeper into Russian territory only two days earlier.
Amersham, England — Family and friends of One Direction star Liam Payne, who died last month after falling from a Buenos Aires hotel room, gathered for his funeral in Britain on Wednesday. Payne's former bandmates Harry Styles, Niall Horan, Zayn Malik and Louis Tomlinson were among mourners at the private service at St Mary's Church in Amersham, Buckinghamshire, just outside London.