ISTANBUL (AP) — Russia and Ukraine were expected to sign separate agreements with Turkey and the United Nations on Friday that would allow Ukraine to resume grain shipments to world markets and Russia to export grain and fertilizers, ending a standoff that threatened world food security while the two countries are at war in Ukraine.

Ukrainian and Russian military delegations reached a tentative agreement last week on a U.N. plan that would enable Ukraine to export 22 million tons of desperately needed grain and other agricultural products that have been stuck in Black Sea ports due to the war.

U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres and Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan planned to take part in a signing ceremony in Istanbul. Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu and Ukraine’s infrastructure minister, Oleksandr Kubrakov, were the expected signatories, according to their governments.

Mykhailo Podolyak, an adviser to Ukraine’s president, said Ukraine and Russia would sign separate agreements.

“Ukraine does not sign any documents with Russia,” Podolyak wrote on Twitter, adding that his country would sign an agreement with Turkey and the U.N., with Russia signing a separate “mirror agreement.”

Ukraine is one of the world’s largest exporters of wheat, corn and sunflower oil, but Russia’s invasion of the country and naval blockade of its ports have halted shipments. Some grain is being transported through Europe by rail, road and river, but the prices of vital commodities like wheat and barley have soared during the nearly five-month war.

The deal makes provisions for the safe passage of ships. It foresees the establishment of a control center in Istanbul, to be staffed by U.N., Turkish, Russian and Ukrainian officials, to run and coordinate the process, Turkish officials have said. Ships would undergo inspections to ensure they are not carrying weapons.

Podolyak insisted that no Russian ship would escort vessels and that there would be no Russian representative present at Ukrainian ports. Ukraine also plans an immediate military response “in case of provocations,” he said.

Guterres first raised the critical need to get Ukraine’s agricultural production and Russia’s grain and fertilizer back into world markets in late April during meetings with Russian President Vladimir Putin in Moscow and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy in Kyiv.

He proposed a package deal in early June amid fears that the war was endangering food supplies for many developing nations and could worsen hunger for up to 181 million people.

Russian and Ukrainian officials have blamed each other for the blocked grain shipments. Moscow accused Ukraine of failing to remove sea mines at the ports to allow safe shipping and insisted on its right to check incoming ships for weapons. Ukraine has argued that Russia’s port blockade and launching of missiles from the Black Sea made any shipments unviable.

Ukraine has sought international guarantees that the Kremlin wouldn’t use the safe corridors to attack the Black Sea port of Odesa. Ukrainian authorities have also accused Russia of stealing grain from eastern Ukraine and deliberately shelling Ukrainian fields to set them on fire.

On Thursday evening, a spokesperson for Ukraine’s Foreign Ministry appeared to lay out Kyiv’s conditions for backing the plan.

Ukraine’s delegation “will support only those decisions that will guarantee the security of the southern regions of Ukraine, the strong position of the armed forces of Ukraine in the Black Sea and the safe export of Ukrainian agricultural products to world markets,” the spokesperson, Oleh Nikolenko, told reporters.

In Washington, State Department spokesman Ned Price said the U.S. welcomes the agreement in principle. “But what we’re focusing on now is holding Russia accountable for implementing this agreement and for enabling Ukrainian grain to get to world markets. It has been for far too long that Russia has enacted this blockade,” Price said.

___

Follow AP’s coverage of the Russia-Ukraine war at https://apnews.com/hub/russia-ukraine

By LISA MASCARO, MARY CLARE JALONICK and FARNOUSH AMIRI

WASHINGTON (AP) — The House Jan. 6 committee will hold its final hearing of the summer the way the series began — vividly making the case that Donald Trump’s lies about a stolen election fueled the grisly U.S. Capitol attack, which he did nothing to stop but instead “gleefully” watched on television at the White House.

Thursday’s prime-time hearing will dive into the 187 minutes that Trump failed to act on Jan. 6, 2021, despite pleas for help from aides, allies and even his family. The panel intends to show how the defeated president’s attempt to overturn Joe Biden’s election victory has left the United States facing enduring questions about the resiliency of its democracy.

“A profound moment of reckoning for America,” said Rep. Jamie Raskin, D-Md., a member of the committee.

With live testimony from two former White House aides, and excerpts from its trove of more than 1,000 interviews, the nearly two-hour session will add a closing chapter to the past six weeks of hearings that at times have captivated the nation.

Returning to prime time for the first time since the series of hearings began, the panel aims to show just how close the United States came to what one retired federal judge testifying this summer called a constitutional crisis.

The events of Jan. 6 will be outlined “minute by minute,” said the panel’s vice chair, Rep. Liz Cheney, R-Wyo.

“You will hear that Donald Trump never picked up the phone that day to order his administration to help,” Cheney said.

“He did not call the military. His Secretary of Defense received no order. He did not call his Attorney General. He did not talk to the Department of Homeland Security,” Cheney said. “Mike Pence did all of those things; Donald Trump did not.”

Testifying Thursday will be former White House aides who had close proximity to power.

Matt Pottinger, who was deputy national security adviser, and Sarah Matthews, then press aide, both submitted their resignations on Jan. 6, 2021, after what they saw that day. Trump has dismissed the hearings on social media and regarded much of the testimony as fake.

Rep. Bennie Thompson, D-Miss., the chairman of the committee, is isolating after testing positive for COVID-19 and will attend by video. Rep. Elaine Luria, D-Va., a former Naval officer who will lead the session with Rep. Adam Kinzinger, R-Ill., who flew combat missions in Iraq and Afghanistan, said she expects the testimony from the White House aides will “just be really compelling.”

“These are people who believed in the work they were doing, but didn’t believe in the stolen election,” Luria said.

The White House aides were not alone in calling it quits that day. The panel is expected to provide a tally of the Trump administration aides and even Cabinet members who resigned after Trump failed to call off the attack. Some Cabinet members were so alarmed they discussed invoking the 25th Amendment to remove Trump from office.

As the panel continues to collect evidence and prepares to issue a preliminary report of findings, it has amassed the most substantial public record to date of what led up to Americans attacking the seat of democracy.

While the committee cannot make criminal charges, the Justice Department is monitoring its work.

So far, more than 840 people have been charged with federal crimes related to the Capitol riot. Over 330 of them have pleaded guilty, mostly to misdemeanors. Of the more than 200 defendants to be sentenced, approximately 100 received terms of imprisonment.

What remains uncertain is whether Trump or the former president’s top allies will face serious charges. No former president has ever been federally prosecuted by the Justice Department.

Attorney General Merrick Garland said Wednesday that Jan. 6 is “the most wide-ranging investigation and the most important investigation that the Justice Department has ever entered into.”

“We have to get this right,” Garland said. “For people who are concerned, as I think every American should be, we have to do two things: We have to hold accountable every person who is criminally responsible for trying to overturn a legitimate election, and we must do it in a way filled with integrity and professionalism.”

In delving into the timeline, the panel aims to show what happened between the time Trump left the stage at his “Stop the Steal” rally shortly after 1:10 p.m., after telling supporters to march to the Capitol, and some three hours later, when he issued a video address from the Rose Garden in which he told the rioters to “go home” but also praised them as “very special.”

It also expects to produce additional evidence about Trump’s confrontation with Secret Service agents who refused to drive him to the Capitol — a witness account that the security detail has disputed.

Five people died that day as Trump supporters battled the police in gory hand-to-hand combat to storm the Capitol. One officer has testified about how she was “slipping in other people’s blood” as they tried to hold back the mob. One Trump supporter was shot and killed by police.

“The president didn’t do very much but gleefully watch television during this time frame,” Kinzinger said.

Not only did Trump refuse to tell the mob to leave the Capitol, he did not call other parts of the government for backup and gave no order to deploy the National Guard, Cheney said.

This despite countless pleas from Trump’s aides and allies, including his daughter Ivanka Trump and Fox News host Sean Hannity, according to previous testimony and text messages the committee has obtained.

“You will hear that leaders on Capitol Hill begged the president for help,” Cheney has said, including House Republican leader Kevin McCarthy, who she said indicated he was “‘scared’ and called multiple members of President Trump’s family after he could not persuade the President himself.”

The panel has said its investigation is ongoing and other hearings are possible. It expects to compile a preliminary report this fall, and a final report by the end of this session of Congress.

___

Follow AP’s coverage of the Jan. 6 committee hearings at https://apnews.com/hub/capitol-siege.