ANKARA, Turkey -- Turkish officials say a deal on a U.N. plan to unblock the exports of Ukrainian grain amid the war and to allow Russia to export grain and fertilizers will be signed today in Istanbul.

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan's office said that he, U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres and officials from Russia and Ukraine will oversee the signing ceremony. It did not provide further details.

"The grain export agreement, critically important for global food security, will be signed in Istanbul tomorrow under the auspices of President Erdogan and U.N. Secretary General Mr. Guterres together with Ukrainian and Russian delegations," Erdogan spokesman Ibrahim Kalin said in a tweet.

Guterres has been working on a plan that would enable Ukraine to export millions of tons of grain that have been stuck in its Black Sea ports -- a move that could ease a global food crisis that has sent wheat and other grain prices soaring. At least 22 million tons of grain are stuck there due to the war.

Last week, the sides met in Istanbul, reaching a tentative agreement on the plan. It foresees joint controls of ships as they leave and arrive at Black Sea ports, and a mechanism to ensure the safety of the transfer routes, Turkish officials said.

A coordination center for the shipping of exports would be established in Istanbul and would include U.N., Turkish, Russian and Ukrainian officials.

U.N. deputy spokesman Farhan Haq said Guterres arrived Thursday in Istanbul, which means "we're moving ahead" on the deal. U.N. humanitarian chief Martin Griffiths, whom Guterres put in charge of the Ukraine side of the deal, and Rebeca Grynspan, head of the U.N. Conference on Trade and Development, whom he put in charge of the Russian side, were also in Istanbul.

"We've been working around the clock with intense behind the scenes talks with countless moving parts," Haq said.

With the growing global food crisis, Haq said if an agreement is reached "we can potentially save hundreds of thousands, potentially millions of people, from having food be priced out of their reach."

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. Russia has also insisted on its right to check incoming ships for weapons.

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 its eastern regions to sell, and deliberately shelling Ukrainian fields to set them on fire.

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

Oleh Nikolenko told reporters that 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 Kremlin's spokesman declined to comment on the Turkish announcement. Dmitry Peskov said it was a question "for the [Russian] military."

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.

Russian shelling pounded a densely populated area in Ukraine's second-largest city Thursday, killing at least three people and injuring at least 23 others with a barrage that struck a mosque, a medical facility and a shopping area, according to officials and witnesses.

Police in the northeast city of Kharkiv said cluster bombs hit Barabashovo Market, where Associated Press journalists saw a woman crying over her dead husband's body. Local officials said the shelling also struck a bus stop, a gym and a residential building.

The bombardment came after Russia on Wednesday reiterated its plans to seize territories beyond eastern Ukraine, where the Russian military has spent months trying to conquer the Donbas region, which is south of Kharkiv. It also followed Ukrainian attacks this week on a bridge the Russians have used to supply their forces in occupied areas near Ukraine's southern Black Sea coast.

Kharkiv Mayor Ihor Terekhov said the attacks early Thursday targeted one of the most crowded areas of the city, which had a prewar population of about 1.4 million.

"The Russian army is randomly shelling Kharkiv, peaceful residential areas. Civilians are being killed," Terekhov said.

At the market, Sabina Pogorelets' desperate screams pierced the air as she begged Ukrainian police to let her embrace her husband, Adam, a vendor whose body was lying partly covered with cloth next to a small stall. A bloody wound could be seen on his head as policemen gently pulled his wife away so medical workers could take away his body.

"Please! I need to hold his hand!" Pogorelets cried.

Nearby, a man hugged his small daughter as he and other visitors stood in shock. Emergency teams treated at least two of the wounded in nearby ambulances.

"People started working little by little, they came out to sell things, and residents came here to buy things," said Volodymyr Tymoshko, head of the National Police in the Kharkiv region. "And exactly this place was hit by Uragan rockets with cluster bombs to maximize the damage to people."

The cluster bombs claim could not be independently confirmed. AP journalists at the scene saw burned-out cars and a bus pierced by shrapnel.

The Kharkiv regional governor, Oleh Syniehubov, said four people were in grave condition and a child was among those wounded in the shelling. Russian forces also shelled wheat fields, setting them on fire, he said.

Elsewhere, Russian forces shelled the southern city of Mykolaiv overnight as well as the eastern cities of Kramatorsk and Kostiantynivka, where two schools were destroyed, Ukrainian officials said. A man's body was recovered from the rubble of the school in Kramatorsk, and emergency workers say two more people were feared trapped there.

The scattered attacks illustrate broader war aims beyond Russia's previously declared focus on the Donbas region's Donetsk and Luhansk provinces, which pro-Moscow separatists have partly controlled since 2014.

Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov told Russian news outlets on Wednesday that Russia plans to retain control over more territory, including the Kherson and Zaporizhzhia regions in southern Ukraine. Moscow also envisions making gains elsewhere, Lavrov said.

Analysts from the Institute for the Study of War, a think tank based in Washington, said the Russian offensive in Donetsk was likely to stall before reaching the cities of Sloviansk and Bakhmut. "Russian troops are now struggling to move across relatively sparsely settled and open terrain. They will encounter terrain much more conducive to the Ukrainian defenders," their assessment said.

Russia resumed flows of natural gas to Germany early Thursday, easing fears in Europe that a key pipeline would become the latest target in the escalating confrontation between Moscow and the West as the war in Ukraine stretches into its fifth month.

A steady stream of weapons from Western allies that are being used by Ukraine to increasingly devastating effect against Russian forces had raised the suspense around whether Moscow would resume gas deliveries after a 10-day hiatus for annual maintenance. The tensions served as a stark reminder of how dangerously dependent Germany -- Europe's largest economy -- and several of its neighbors remain on energy from Russia.

The Ukrainian military said Thursday that over the past 24 hours it had conducted 10 strikes across southern Ukraine using attack helicopters and fighter jets, targeting five Russian strongholds. They also targeted six Russian ammunition depots and several command posts with missile and artillery strikes against more than 200 Russian targets.

The Pentagon said Wednesday that it would send Ukraine four more advanced multiple-rocket launch vehicles, known as HIMARS, and senior defense officials acknowledged that they were considering sending Ukraine new fighter jets.

Gen. Charles Q. Brown Jr., the chief of staff of the U.S. Air Force, declined to speculate on what type of aircraft might be transferred, but he said that discussions were ongoing about how to reinforce Ukraine's fleet.

"It'll be something non-Russian, I can probably tell you that," Brown said during an appearance at the Aspen Security Forum in Colorado. "But I can't tell you exactly what it's going to be."

At that same forum, William J. Burns, the CIA director, said that President Vladimir Putin of Russia had made a fundamental miscalculation.

"He insists that Ukraine is not a real country, but real countries fight back," Burns said.

But he said the Russian leader believed that America has a short attention span and that with time, Western resolve will fade.

Despite Thursday's resumption of gas flow, European Union leaders believe that Putin will continue to exploit bloc members' dependence on Russian fossil fuels as a way to weaken the countries' economies and fracture the alliance.

"Russia is blackmailing us," said Ursula von der Leyen, the European Commission president, as she introduced the plan to reduce gas consumption. "Russia is using energy as a weapon."

The bloc is urging member nations to immediately begin cutting their use of natural gas to prepare for an uncertain and possibly unsteady supply before the winter.

In Germany alone, half of all homes are heated with gas, and the fuel is a crucial element to keeping the country's important chemical, steel-making and auto industries running. Even before the July 11 shutdown of Nord Stream 1, the government in Berlin had declared a "gas crisis" and began enacting measures to reduce gas consumption, such as ordering the resumption of coal-fired power plants to replace those running on gas.

In the weeks leading up to the shutdown, Gazprom had already reduced flows through the pipeline to 40% of its capacity.

The head of Germany's network regulator, Klaus Müller, said that flows had returned to that level early Thursday -- exceeding the amount that Gazprom, Russia's state-owned energy monopoly, had told operators would be delivered.

"Unfortunately, the political uncertainty and the 60% cut from mid-June remain," Müller said.

Information for this article was contributed by Mystslav Chernov of The Associated Press and by Melissa Eddy and Marc Santora of The New York Times.

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