[ODUNEWS] August 1 – A ship carrying grain left the Ukrainian port of Odesa for foreign markets on Monday under a safe passage agreement, a Ukrainian minister said, the first departure since the Russian invasion blocked shipping through the Black Sea five months ago.
The sailing was made possible after Turkey and the United Nations brokered a grain-and-fertilizer export agreement between Russia and Ukraine last month.
“The first grain ship since #RussianAggression has left port. Thanks to the support of all our partner countries & @UN we were able to fully implement the Agreement signed in Istanbul,” Infrastructure Minister Oleksandr Kubrakov said on Twitter.
The Turkish defense minister said earlier that the Sierra Leone-flagged ship Razoni, which is loaded with corn, will head to Lebanon. More ships will follow, it said.
The Russian invasion of Ukraine on February 24 has led to a worldwide food and energy crisis and the United Nations has warned of the risk of multiple famines this year.
Russia and Ukraine account for nearly a third of global wheat exports. But Western sanctions on Russia and fighting along Ukraine’s eastern seaboard have prevented grain ships from safely leaving ports.
The deal aims to allow safe passage for grain shipments in and out of Chornomorsk, Odesa, and the port of Pivdennyi.
Ukrainian presidential officials have said 17 ships were docked in Ukraine’s Black Sea ports with almost 600,000 tonnes of cargo. Of them, 16 vessels held Ukrainian grain with a total tonnage of about 580,000 tonnes.
Moscow has denied responsibility for the food crisis, blaming Western sanctions for slowing exports and Ukraine for mining the approaches to its ports.
Despite the breakthrough in the grain shipments, the war ground on elsewhere.
Russian missiles on Sunday pounded Mykolaiv, a port city on the River Bug estuary off the Black Sea that borders the mostly Russian-occupied Kherson region.
Mykolaiv Mayor Oleksandr Senkevych said more than 12 missile strikes – probably the most powerful on the city in five months of the war – hit homes and schools, with two people confirmed killed and three wounded.
Ukrainian grain tycoon Oleksiy Vadatursky, founder and owner of agriculture company Nibulon, and his wife were killed in their home, Mykolaiv Governor Vitaliy Kim said on Telegram.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky described Vadatursky’s death as “a great loss for all of Ukraine”.
Zelensky said the businessman – one of Ukraine’s richest with Forbes estimating his 2021 net worth at $430 million – had been building a modern grain market with a network of transshipment terminals and elevators.
“It is these people, these companies, precisely the south of Ukraine, which has guaranteed the world’s food security,” Zelensky said in his nightly address. “This was always so. And it will be so once again.”
Zelensky said Ukraine may harvest only half its usual amount this year due to disruption to farming from the war. Farmers have reported trying to harvest in between the Russian shelling of their fields and nearby towns and villages.
