Russia said on Monday that it had halted participation in a landmark UN-brokered deal which allowed Ukrainian grain to be exported through the Black Sea just hours after Moscow said Ukraine had attacked the Crimean Bridge.
Two people were killed and their daughter was wounded in what Russia cast as a terrorist attack on a major artery for Russian troops fighting in Ukraine and a prestige project personally opened by President Vladimir Putin.
Blasts were reported before dawn on the 19-km (12-mile) road and rail bridge linking Russia to Crimea, which Russia annexed from Ukraine in 2014.
The Kremlin said the halting of the Black Sea grain deal, brokered by the United Nations and Turkey to combat a global food crisis worsened by Russia's invasion of Ukraine, had nothing to do with the bridge attack.
"In fact, the Black Sea agreements ceased to be valid today," Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters on a conference call.
"Unfortunately, the part of these Black Sea agreements concerning Russia has not been implemented so far, so its effect is terminated."
Russia has notified Turkey, Ukraine and the U.N. that Moscow is against extending the deal, Maria Zakharova, a spokeswoman for Russia's foreign ministry, said.
The Chicago Board of Trade's most active wheat contract was up 3.4% at $6.84 a bushel by 0910 GMT after earlier rising over 4%.
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