Turkish, Russian and Ukrainian experts inspected on Wednesday near Istanbul the ship carrying the first grain shipment exported by Ukraine since the start of the Russian invasion on February 24, before the cargo ship resumes its journey to the Lebanon.
The Razoni inspection lasted just under an hour and a half, AFP noted. The freighter then continued on its way, entering the northern entrance to the Bosphorus in the early afternoon.
This inspection marked the end of a “test phase” of operations to implement the international agreement signed in Istanbul in July to curb the world food crisis, said the secretariat of the Joint Coordination Center.
“The inspection team was able to speak with the crew and inquire about the route taken in the dedicated humanitarian maritime corridor in the Black Sea”, he specified before adding that “the exports of millions tons of wheat, corn and other cereals must continue from three Ukrainian ports”.
The cargo ship, flying the flag of Sierra Leone, left the Ukrainian port of Odessa on the Black Sea on Monday with 26,000 tons of corn bound for Tripoli, Lebanon.
The twenty experts and delegates of the United Nations dressed in orange life jackets and helmets, were led by the Turkish Admiral Özcan Altunbulak, head of the Joint Coordination Center which oversees exports and by the Admiral of the US Navy in retirement, Fred Kenney.
The inspection took place in accordance with the wishes of Russia, which wants to be sure of the nature of the cargo.
16 ships on hold
According to kyiv, 16 other ships loaded with grain are waiting to leave Odessa, the main Ukrainian port which before the war concentrated 60% of the country’s port activity.
The agreement signed on July 22 between Russia and Ukraine, mediated by Turkey and under the aegis of the United Nations, allows the resumption of shipments to world markets of Ukrainian cereals blocked since the Russian invasion, under international oversight.
The document provides in particular for the establishment of secure corridors to allow the circulation in the Black Sea of merchant ships and the export of 20 to 25 million tonnes of cereals.
A similar agreement signed simultaneously guarantees Russia the export of its agricultural products and fertilizers, despite Western sanctions.
Both agreements are expected to help ease the global food crisis caused by soaring food prices in some of the poorest countries.
The Turks also hope that these agreements will help build confidence and lead to ceasefire talks between Moscow and kyiv.
Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan is expected to push for an armistice when he meets Vladimir Putin on Friday during the Russian leader’s stay in Sochi, on the Black Sea.
“We have discussed whether the grain agreement can be an opportunity for a lasting ceasefire,” Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu confirmed after meeting his Russian counterpart, Sergei Lavrov , in Cambodia, on Wednesday.
Russian missile strike
On the military ground, the Russian army shelled the city of Chuguyv in northeastern Ukraine, killing one person and injuring two, Kharkiv region police official Sergei Bolvinov announced on Facebook. . He said the person killed and one of the injured are “Russian citizens”.
Kharkiv, the second Ukrainian city, close to the Russian border, was the target of two strikes overnight from Tuesday to Wednesday from Russian territory, according to regional authorities.
In addition, the Russian army announced on Wednesday that it had destroyed a depot of foreign weapons in the Lviv region, in western Ukraine, with “high-precision missiles”.
In June, Moscow had already claimed to have destroyed an arms depot delivered by NATO in western Ukraine, relatively spared from the bombardments.
The southern city of Mykolaiv was shelled again overnight, regional governor Vitali Kim announced on Telegram. A supermarket and a pharmacy were destroyed and an equestrian school was hit, he said.
According to Mayor Oleksandr Senkevych, “powerful explosions” were heard around 5:00 a.m. Wednesday.
In the Donbass basin in eastern Ukraine, Pavlo Kyrylenko, the governor of the Donetsk region, in the epicenter of the fighting, said on Wednesday four civilians had been killed in the past 24 hours.
Ukraine, which is currently leading a counter-offensive in southern Ukraine, announced on Tuesday that it had taken over 53 localities in the Kherson region, the first major city to fall into the hands of the Russian army on March 3.
Elsewhere, on the energy front, German Chancellor Olaf Scholz on Wednesday accused Russia of being responsible for blocking the delivery of a turbine currently in Germany, without which the Nord Stream 1 pipeline that supplies gas to Europe cannot, according to Moscow, function normally.
But, on the contrary, for the Russian gas giant Gazprom, the return to Russia of this Siemens turbine is “impossible” because of Western sanctions against Moscow.
European countries accuse Moscow of looking for a pretext to delay the return of this turbine and further reduce its gas deliveries, in the context of tensions around Ukraine.