Freight ships leave Ukraine with nearly 170,000 tonnes of vital food
Four freight ships leave Ukrainian ports carrying nearly 170,000 tonnes of vital corn and oil as export deal aims to prevent global food crisis
- A foreign-flagged ship yesterday docked at a Ukrainian port for the first time since Russia’s invasion began
- Four bulk carriers were loaded to the brim with corn, oil and other sorely needed products this weekend
- They set sail this morning with almost 170,000 tonnes of foodstuffs under a deal brokered by U.N. and Turkey
- Ukraine and Russia together accounted for nearly a third of global wheat exports prior to their conflict
- Getting exports underway is essential in avoiding a global food crisis amid shortages and rising prices
- It comes as the secretary general of the U.N’s nuclear watchdog urged both sides to exercise restraint after Europe’s largest nuclear powerplant was shelled on Friday
Freight ships carrying almost 170,000 tonnes of grain and other products set sail from Ukraine’s Black Sea ports this morning as part of a U.N.-brokered deal to protect the export of vital foodstuffs from the nation amid war with Russia.
Foreign-flagged ships yesterday docked at a Ukrainian port for the first time since Russia’s invasion began on February 24, according to infrastructure minister Oleksandr Kubrakov.
Four bulk carriers were then loaded to the brim with corn, oil and other sorely needed products, Ukraine’s sea ports authority said on Facebook, and were able to leave the southern ports safely.
The operation was overseen by a Joint Coordination Centre (JCC) in Istanbul where Russian, Ukrainian, Turkish and U.N. personnel are working to kickstart grain shipments from Ukraine.
‘We are gradually moving on to larger volumes of work. We plan to ensure the ability of the ports to handle at least 100 vessels per month in the near future,’ Kubrakov said on Facebook on Sunday.
He said Ukraine soon planned to involve Pivdennyi port in implementation of the grain export initiative and expected that as a result Ukraine will be able to ship up to at least 3 million tonnes of goods per month.
Before Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, the two nations together accounted for nearly a third of global wheat exports, but the conflict disrupted months of harvesting, processing and exporting operations and threatened to exacerbate a global food crisis.
Ukrainian authorities say Russian missile attacks have devastated wheat fields and grain storage warehouses, while Russia’s ships blockaded southern ports, preventing ships from entering or leaving.
Russia meanwhile accused Ukraine of placing mines along its southern shores and said it had hamstrung its own export operations.
The Marshall Islands-flagged bulk carrier Glory leaves the sea port in Chornomorsk after restarting grain export, amid Russia’s attack on Ukraine, Ukraine August 7, 2022
The bulk carrier ship ‘Glory’ leaves Chornomorsk port as part of a recent grain export deal signed between Turkey, the UN, Russia, and Ukraine, in Odessa, Ukraine on August 7, 2022
Four bulk carriers were loaded to the brim with corn, oil and other sorely needed products, Ukraine’s sea ports authority said on Facebook, and were able to leave the southern ports safely this morning (Marshall Islands-flagged bulk carrier Star Helena is seen at the sea port in Chornomorsk)
Ukraine is usually one of the world’s largest grain exporters, but the Russian invasion and naval blockade has trapped millions of metric tons of grains here, raising fears of a global food crisis
A wheat field burns after Russian shelling in a few kilometres from Ukrainian-Russian border in the Kharkiv region, Ukraine, Friday, July 29, 2022
Wheat grains are seen inside a storage damaged by a Russian missile strike, as Russia’s attack on Ukraine continues, in Zaporizhzhia Region, Ukraine August 5, 2022
The JCC said late on Saturday it had authorised the departure of a total of five new vessels through the Black Sea corridor: four vessels outbound from Chornomorsk and Odesa carrying 161,084 metric tonnes of foodstuffs, and one inbound.
The ships that have left Ukrainian ports included the Marshall Islands-flagged Glory, with a cargo of 66,000 tonnes of corn bound for Istanbul, and Riva Wind, loaded with 44,000 tonnes of corn, heading for Turkey’s Iskenderun, the Turkish defence ministry said.
It said the other two vessels to have left Ukraine were Star Helena, with a cargo of 45,000 tonnes of meal to China, and Mustafa Necati, carrying 6,000 tonnes of sunflower oil to Italy.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky welcomed the resumption of exports, though he said risks remained.
‘The threat of Russian provocations and terrorist acts remains. Everyone should be aware of this,’ he said.
‘But if our partners fulfil their part of the commitment and guarantee the security of supplies, this will really solve the global food crisis.’
Despite agreeing to cease its blockade on Ukraine’s ports, Russia has continued to attack dozens of southeastern Ukrainian towns, while the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) raised grave concern about the shelling of Europe’s largest nuclear power plant in Zaporizhzhia.
Since Russia invaded Ukraine on Feb. 24 in what President Vladimir Putin termed a ‘special military operation’, the conflict has settled into a war of attrition fought largely in Ukraine’s east and south.
But the fighting over the Zaporizhzhia nuclear plant, captured by Russian forces in the opening stage of the war but still run by Ukrainian technicians, has raised the prospect of a wider disaster.
Shells hit a high-voltage power line at the facility on Friday, forcing its operators to disconnect a reactor to prevent the possibility of radiation leaks.
‘I’m extremely concerned by the shelling at Europe’s largest nuclear power plant, which underlines the very real risk of a nuclear disaster,’ IAEA Director General Rafael Mariano Grossi said in a statement yesterday.
Ukraine’s state nuclear power company Energoatom blamed Russia for the damage while Russia’s defence ministry accused Ukrainian forces of shelling the plant.
The United States has accused Russia of using the facility as a ‘nuclear shield’ by moving large amounts of troops, ammunition and military equipment to the area, in the knowledge that Ukraine’s armed forces are highly unlikely to launch an attack on its own power plant, particularly with the looming threat of nuclear disaster.
Grossi, who leads the United Nation’s nuclear watchdog, urged all sides to exercise the ‘utmost restraint’.
The premises of an agriculture processing facility are seen damaged after a Russian missile attack, Zaporizhzhia Region, southeastern Ukraine
A high voltage power line was destroyed at the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant (pictured) on Friday, forcing its operators to disconnect a reactor to prevent the possibility of radiation leaks
A serviceman with a Russian flag on his uniform stands guard near the Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant in the course of Ukraine-Russia conflict outside the Russian-controlled city of Enerhodar in the Zaporizhzhia region, Ukraine August 4, 2022
Women walk along a street past a billboard displaying pro-Russian slogans in the course of Ukraine-Russia conflict in the Russian-controlled city of Melitopol in the Zaporizhzhia region, Ukraine August 3, 2022. A billboard reads: ‘We are the one people. We are together with Russia’
Russia is trying to gain control of the largely Russian-speaking Donbas region in the east, comprised of Luhansk and Donetsk provinces, where pro-Moscow separatists seized territory after the Kremlin annexed Crimea in 2014.
Ukraine’s military said late on Saturday that Russian forces had shelled dozens of front-line towns and were trying to attack in six different areas in the Donetsk region, though had struggled to gain any ground.
Zelensky said that over the past week his forces had ‘achieved powerful results’ in destroying Russia’s logistics supplies and rear bases.
‘Every strike on the enemy’s ammunition depots, on their command posts, and on accumulations of Russian equipment saves the lives of all of us, the lives of Ukrainian military and civilians,’ he said in a late-night video address.
British military intelligence said earlier that Russian forces were almost certainly amassing in the south, anticipating a counter-offensive or in preparation for an assault, and the war was about to enter a new phase, with most fighting shifting to a nearly 220 miles-long front from near Zaporizhzhia to Kherson, parallel to the Dnieper River.
Ukraine’s forces were focusing on hitting bridges, ammunition depots, and rail links with growing frequency in its southern regions, including the strategically important railroad spur that links Kherson to Russian-occupied Crimea, it said.
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