A handout image made available by the Odessa City Council Telegram channel on July 24, 2022, shows Ukrainian firefighters battling a fire on a boat burning in the port of Odessa after missiles hit the port on July 23, 2022. (STR / ODESSA CITY COUNCIL TELEGRAM CHANNEL / AFP)
KIEV / BEIJING – Ukraine will get some 1.6 billion euros (about $1.62 billion) from the European Investment Bank (EIB), Ukrainian Prime Minister Denys Shmyhal announced on Tuesday.
"Yesterday, the European Investment Bank agreed to disburse 1.6 billion euros to Ukraine, with 1 billion euros out of this sum to be allocated promptly," Shmyhal told a cabinet meeting, according to the government's press service.
The Russian Defense Ministry said that their armed forces have used high-precision air-based missiles to hit a temporary deployment point of foreign legion units near Donetsk's Kostantinovka and killed over 40 foreign mercenaries, most of them Poles
Shmyhal said the funds will be directed for the activities to prepare Ukraine for the heating season, including the restoration of damaged electricity, water and heat supply facilities.
According to the Interfax-Ukraine news agency, Ukraine will also use part of the funding from the EIB to finance projects in energy efficiency, roads, transport, education, infrastructure and other sectors.
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Kiev plans to raise $20 billion in international aid from its Western partners by the end of 2022, said Ukrainian Finance Minister Serhiy Marchenko at a public event last month.
Meanwhile, Kremlin Spokesman Dmitry Peskov said a recent strike carried out by Russian armed forces on Ukrainian military infrastructure in the port of Odessa should not affect the start of grain exports.
The Russian Defense Ministry announced Sunday that the country's armed forces launched a missile attack on the territory of a shipyard in Odessa, destroying a Ukrainian military ship and a depot with US Harpoon anti-ship missiles.
"This (strike) is only linked to military infrastructure. This is in no way connected with the infrastructure that will be used to fulfill the agreements and export grain," Peskov said commenting on the attack on Monday.
And in accordance with the Russia-Ukraine grain export deal, a joint coordination center in Istanbul has begun its work, the Russian Defense Ministry said Tuesday.
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A group of Russian experts would arrive in Istanbul on Tuesday and start work in a quadripartite format in a bid to promptly resolve all the necessary issues for the practical implementation of the deal, it added
The ministry also said that their armed forces have used high-precision air-based missiles to hit a temporary deployment point of foreign legion units near Donetsk's Kostantinovka and killed over 40 foreign mercenaries, most of them Poles.
Russia also used high-precision weapons to strike one artillery battalion of Ukraine, destroying more than 70 percent of its personnel and weapons, it added.
On the other hand, the bodies of twenty-five Ukrainian servicemen killed in the Russia-Ukraine conflict have been returned to Ukraine, Ukraine's Ministry of Reintegration of the Temporarily Occupied Territories said Tuesday.
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The operation to hand over the bodies to the Ukrainian side was carried out by joint efforts of Ukraine's Commissioner for Missing Persons Oleg Kotenko and the country's law enforcement agencies, the ministry's press service said in a statement.