Aurelia Butler

Ukraine accused Russia of firing missiles at its key grain exporting port of Odesa on Saturday, a day after Moscow signed a deal allowing Kyiv to resume grain exports in a bid to alleviate the growing global food crisis.Two Kalibr cruise missiles hit Odesa’s port and two others were shot down by Ukrainian air defences, according to Serhiy Bratchuk, a spokesman for Ukraine’s southern military command. Videos posted on social media showed a large plume of smoke billowing from the port. Oleksiy Honcharenko, a Ukrainian member of parliament, wrote on messaging app Telegram that at least six explosions were heard and an unspecified number of people were wounded.On Friday Russia’s defence minister signed a deal brokered by the UN and Turkey agreeing to let Kyiv export millions of tonnes of grain from its Black Sea ports.Russia’s navy has blockaded Ukraine’s commercial sea routes, launched missile strikes on its ports and grain storage infrastructure and attacked civilian grain transport ships since president Vladimir Putin ordered the full-scale invasion of Ukraine in late February.Ukraine said Saturday’s strikes violated Russia’s promise not to attack its grain export infrastructure and called the viability of Friday’s deal into question.

Oleg Nikolenko, Ukraine’s foreign ministry spokesman, said Russia would “bear full responsibility for the deepening of the global food crisis” if it did not uphold its promises not to attack the port. He accused Putin of “spit[ting] in the face” of UN secretary-general António Guterres and Turkish president Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, who brokered the talks.“Yesterday grain export by sea was agreed, and today the Russians are hitting Odesa port. That’s the Russian diplomatic dichotomy,” Andriy Yermak, head of president Volodymyr Zelenskyy’s administration, wrote on Twitter.Zelenskyy told a visiting US congressional delegation that the attack “proves only one thing: no matter what Russia says and promises, it will find ways not to implement it”, according to his website.US secretary of state Antony Blinken condemned the attack, saying Russia was “starving Ukraine of its economic vitality and the world of its food supply”.“This attack casts serious doubt on the credibility of Russia’s commitment to yesterday’s deal and undermines the work of the UN, Turkey, and Ukraine to get critical food to world markets,” he said.The grain deal, which Guterres hailed as a “beacon of hope”, was the first major agreement struck between the two sides in the five-month conflict. The blockade has choked off a crucial economic lifeline for Ukraine and left an estimated 22mn tonnes of wheat, corn and other grains stranded in silos, with devastating effects on global food prices and poverty levels. As many as 47mn people, particularly in sub-Saharan Africa, are at risk of acute hunger because of the conflict, according to the World Food Programme.Guterres’ office issued a statement saying he “unequivocally condemns” the strikes, without directly blaming Russia.“Yesterday, all parties made clear commitments on the global stage to ensure the safe movement of Ukrainian grain and related products to global markets,” the statement said. “These products are desperately needed to address the global food crisis and ease the suffering of millions of people in need around the globe. Full implementation by the Russian Federation, Ukraine and Turkey is imperative.”Hulusi Akar, Turkey’s defence minister, said his Ukrainian counterpart informed him that one Russian missile had hit a grain silo at the port but that cargo loading facilities were unaffected and activities at the port continued. He also said that Russian officials had denied to him that they had anything to do with the attack.“The fact that this incident took place right after the agreement we made yesterday regarding the grain shipment has really worried us, and we are disturbed by this. However, we continue to fulfil our responsibilities in the agreement,” Akar told the state news agency Anadolu.Akar added that Russian, Ukrainian and UN representatives have already begun to work together at a joint co-ordination centre in Turkey and he remained hopeful that grain shipments would start quickly.Billionaire oligarch Roman Abramovich, who sold Chelsea Football Club in May after the UK and EU sanctioned him, attended the signing ceremony and played a key role in the deal, according to three people familiar with the matter.Abramovich helped facilitate peace talks between Russia and Ukraine with Putin’s blessing before they collapsed in April.He visited Kyiv several times, where he met Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskyy, and has since played a role brokering prisoner exchanges and opening evacuation routes for civilians, according to people familiar with the matter.“He was key to it all. He’s one of the only people close to Putin to whom the Ukrainians talk,” one of the people said. A Ukrainian official said Abramovich’s role had become more prominent since the peace talks stalled in the spring.“Somehow he is part of the circle dealing with sensitive issues between Ukraine and Russia,” the official said. “He is on the list of trusted people who can be in any talks.”Dmitry Peskov, Putin’s spokesman, denied that Abramovich had played a crucial role in the talks.Elsewhere in Ukraine, officials in the port city of Mykolayiv reported being hit by six Russian projectiles on Saturday. None of them hit port infrastructure and its facilities are not part of the agreement that was brokered in Turkey. The Kremlin, Turkey’s foreign ministry, and a spokesperson for Abramovich did not immediately respond to requests for comment. Additional reporting by Ayla Jean Yackley and Felicia Schwartz More

Argentina is the IMF’s largest debtor with a $44 billion program that was approved by the board in late March. Argentina’s peso currency also fell to record lows this week, weighed down by a stronger dollar worldwide and a domestic political crisis. Batakis was appointed less than a month ago after her predecessor Martin Guzman, the architect of the debt deal with the IMF, abruptly resigned with inflation running at over 60% a year and expected to continue rising.Batakis, who has said she will respect the IMF accord, will meet IMF Managing Director Kristalina Georgieva. They have already spoken by phone in what Georgieva described on Twitter (NYSE:TWTR) as a “very good call.”Argentine President Alberto Fernandez was scheduled to travel to Washington as well to meet with U.S. President Joe Biden, but the meeting was canceled after Biden contracted COVID-19. Batakis is also set to meet with representatives of the U.S. Department of the Treasury and the World Bank, the government said. More

Some of the world’s largest consumer goods producers face a hit to sales in the coming months as shoppers switch to cheaper supermarket own-brands in an effort to mitigate the cost of living squeeze caused by soaring inflation. Multinational makers of food and household products, including Unilever and Danone, are preparing to publish first-half results in the coming days. Analysts predict they will log falling sales volumes in the coming months, as sales of so-called private label goods have begun to grow.Own-brand labels gained in market share across Europe over the past four weeks, in contrast with “consistent modest share declines” before this year, analysts at Jefferies said.Households are abandoning branded yoghurt, coffee, ice cream and paper products in favour of stores’ own versions, while also trading down to cheaper versions of salty snacks and frozen meat and vegetables, according to Jefferies. Private labels gained 1.1 percentage points of market share in Europe in the past four weeks, according to the group, compared with 0.38 percentage points in the past year.In the US, private label products have gained market share in the four consecutive months to mid-June, according to analysts at Stifel. They said the rise followed two years of “persistent market share losses” for supermarket own-brands.“Private label growth has been a persistent threat to large food companies and will likely represent a secular theme over the next five to 10 years,” said Christopher Growe, analyst at Stifel.Berenberg said sales volumes at large consumer goods companies had been resilient in the first quarter of the year and forecast similar relatively positive figures for the second quarter, but warned of sales declines in the second half.Their predictions include falls of more than 3 per cent for Unilever, which makes Magnum ice creams and Dove soap; French dairy group Danone; coffee group JDE Peet’s; German group Henkel and US snacks maker Mondelez, owner of Cadbury. The world’s largest foodmaker Nestlé and cosmetics group L’Oréal were less at risk, said the Berenberg analysts.Unilever “has exposure to many of the categories most at risk from private labels and/or down-trading, including skin cleaners, household cleaners, cooking ingredients, deodorants, laundry detergent and ice cream,” said Berenberg analyst James Targett. Jefferies analysts noted Danone’s vulnerability to down-trading in its yoghurt portfolio. A Berenberg survey of UK consumers found half of respondents expected to switch from their usual brands, while 58 per cent were considering switching to private label.Owners of global brands have been increasing their prices in the face of steep cost rises for commodities, labour and transport. In the first quarter, consumer multinationals said they raised prices by a typical 5 per cent year-on-year.Upcoming results — including Unilever and Mondelez on July 26, Danone and Reckitt Benckiser on July 27, Nestlé on July 28 and Procter & Gamble on July 29 — will show whether they were able to pass on further cost increases to households without facing a drop in sales.While commodity prices have retreated somewhat from this year’s highs, consumer goods groups still have large extra costs to pass on to customers who are also facing the possibility of a recession.PepsiCo pushed up prices by 12 per cent year-on-year in the three months to mid-June, while still achieving volume growth of 1 per cent. “Europe has the highest penetration of private label, so it will clearly be the most vulnerable market for private-label down-trading,” said Targett, adding that US consumers had more options for cheaper branded goods along with supermarket own-brands.Private label has been gaining in the US in categories such as bleach, vitamins and bottled water, Jefferies said.In emerging markets, hard-pressed consumers tended to switch from packaged food to home cooking, Targett said, or to regional players less buffeted by foreign exchange swings and supply chain problems, such as Indonesian group Wings, a rival to Unilever in the country. More