A ship carrying Ukrainian grain left the port of Odesa on Monday morning destined for Lebanon, the first since the start of the Russian invasion, according to Ukraine’s infrastructure ministry.
The Sierra Leone-flagged ship Razoni, carrying 26,000 tons of corn, finally set sail after weeks of negotiations between Ukraine and Russia, led by Turkey and the United Nations. Russia has been blockading Ukraine’s ports since the start of the war, stoking a worldwide grain shortage that has caused the UN to warn of a looming hunger catastrophe.
“Ukraine, together with our partners, has taken another step today in preventing world hunger,” Oleksandr Kubrakov, Ukraine’s infrastructure minister, said on Monday. Mr Kubrakov stressed that Ukraine had done “everything” to restore the ports and that the lifting of the blockade would give Ukraine’s economy $1 billion in foreign exchange revenue.
Turkey’s defence ministry said more ships would follow.
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Ukraine is one of the world’s biggest grain producers. About 20 million tonnes of grain are reportedly stuck in Ukraine waiting to be exported. The blockade has caused a worldwide grain shortage and price rises, which pushed some countries that are reliant on grain imports, namely in the Middle East and Africa, towards famine.
Separately, Ukraine has urged all people still living in the frontline Donetsk region to evacuate to safer parts of the country to escape further fighting, destruction and a winter without heating.
Deadly Russian shelling and missile attacks continued to hit government-held towns and cities in eastern and southern Ukraine, and in the port of Mykolaiv the owner of a major Ukrainian grain-trading firm was killed with his wife when a rocket hit their home.
Russian officials, meanwhile, said six people were hurt when a drone allegedly exploded at the headquarters of the country’s Black Sea fleet in Crimea, which Moscow annexed in 2014. Ukrainian officials denied involvement, and their military’s nearest positions are some 200km from the port of Sevastopol, where the incident occurred.
“Many people [in Donetsk region] refuse to leave. But it really needs to be done. And the sooner it is done . . . the fewer people the Russian army will have time to kill,” said Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskiy.
“There is a government decision on mandatory evacuation from Donetsk region, everything is being organised. Full support, full assistance . . . Leave, we will help.”
After Russia’s forces failed to capture Kyiv and Kharkiv, Ukraine’s two main cities, they focused on seizing the two eastern regions of Donetsk and Luhansk. They now have de facto control over Luhansk region and parts of Donetsk, and many areas lie in ruins.
“There is absolutely no gas supply in Donetsk region, all the gas pipelines that could be repaired have been repaired, but unfortunately the enemy repeatedly destroys everything that could keep people warm in winter,” said Ukrainian deputy prime minister Iryna Vereshchuk.
“There is no proper electricity supply. In a word, there will be no heating in Donetsk region in winter,” she added, noting that up to 220,000 people were still in the region, including 52,000 children.
Moscow’s military is making slow gains in the east while reinforcing its positions in the southern Kherson region, where Ukraine’s army has retaken villages and struck Russian arms and fuel depots and command posts ahead of a planned counterattack.
Government-controlled Mykolaiv, between occupied Kherson and Kyiv-held Odesa on the Black Sea coast, is now under heavy shelling, and on Sunday a rocket strike killed Oleksiy Vadatursky, owner of major agriculture company Nibulon, and his wife.
Some Kyiv officials said Moscow deliberately targeted the home of a leading figure in the Ukrainian farming and food export sector, just as their country prepares to restart shipments of grain from Black Sea ports that Russia’s navy has blockaded for five months.
“If all [details] are completed by tomorrow [Monday], it seems like there is a high possibility that the first ship will leave the port tomorrow,” said Ibrahim Kalin, a spokesman for Turkish president Recep Tayyip Erdogan.
Turkey and the United Nations brokered agreements to lift Russia’s blockade, which Ukraine says could allow it send 20 million tonnes of trapped grain to world markets.
Sevastopol governor Mikhail Razvozhayev said six people were hurt in an explosion in the courtyard of the headquarters of Russia’s Black Sea fleet, which he blamed on a Ukrainian drone attack – a claim Kyiv officials rejected.
Mr Zelenskiy called on the UN and Red Cross to investigate the death of about 50 Ukrainian prisoners of war from the country’s Azov regiment in an explosion at a detention centre in occupied Donetsk on Friday.
British MP Chris Bryant called for all Russian diplomats in London to be expelled after their embassy wrote on Twitter: “Azov militants deserve execution, but death not by firing squad but by hanging, because they’re not real soldiers. They deserve a humiliating death.” — Additional reporting: Guardian
