Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said that Ukrainian forces had repelled a fierce offensive by Russian troops in the eastern Donetsk region. Zelensky said a military unit from Chop in western Ukraine had undertaken the action, but did not say where the clash had occurred. ‘Today they stopped the fierce offensive actions of the enemy,’ Zelensky said in his nightly address. ‘The Russian attack was repelled.’The President also said Ukraine’s “exchange fund” had been replenished, meaning Russian servicemen had been taken prisoner. The fiercest fighting in Donetsk region has been around the towns of Bakhmut and Avdiivka.

Meanwhile, The head of the United States Agency for International Development urged Russia to continue its participation in the United Nations-brokered Black Sea grain deal, writing that the world cannot afford for Putin to continue to use food as a weapon of war. Russia’s comments about suspending its participation in the Black Sea Grain Initiative are regrettable. This life-saving agreement between Russia, Ukraine, and Turkey, brokered in July by the United Nations, has allowed the export of more than nine million metric tons of grain and other food products to populations around the world in the midst of a devastating global food crisis, USAID Administrator Samantha Power wrote in a statement.