Ukraine resumed its grain exports for the first time since the start of the Russian invasion six months ago on Monday, with the departure of a first boat from the port of Odessa, in accordance with the terms of an international agreement which should make it possible to alleviate the world food crisis.
” Vessel Razoni left the port of Odessa bound for the port of Tripoli in Lebanon. He is expected on August 2 in Istanbul. It will continue on its way to its destination following the inspections that will be carried out in Istanbul,” the Turkish Ministry of Defense announced.
According to Ukrainian Infrastructure Minister Oleksandr Kubrakov, the boat is loaded with 26,000 tons of corn.
UN Secretary-General António Guterres “warmly” welcomed the departure of this first boat, expressing hope that the resumption of Ukrainian grain exports “will bring much-needed stability and aid to global food security”. .
The head of Ukrainian diplomacy, Dmytro Kouleba, spoke of a “day of relief for the world, especially for our friends in the Middle East, Asia and Africa”. According to him, 16 other boats loaded with grain are “waiting their turn” to leave Odessa, in southern Ukraine.
The agreement signed on July 22 in Istanbul between Russia, Ukraine, Turkey and the United Nations allows the resumption of Ukrainian exports under international supervision.
A similar agreement signed simultaneously guarantees Moscow the export of its agricultural products and fertilizers, despite Western sanctions.
These two agreements should help alleviate a global food crisis that has seen prices soar in some of the world’s poorest countries due to the blocking of Ukrainian ports by the conflict with Russia.
Under the terms of the agreement, the vessels and their cargo are to be inspected in Istanbul, under the authority of the Joint Coordination Center (JCC), inaugurated last Wednesday.
Rebuild Mariupol, and fast
The first buildings under reconstruction in Mariupol, a port city in southeastern Ukraine devastated by weeks of bombardment, will be inaugurated in September, Russia, which now occupies this locality, announced on Monday.
“The first buildings will be ready in September. The first hospitals will be ready,” Russian Deputy Prime Minister Marat Khousnullin said in an interview with Russian television channel RBK TV broadcast on Monday.
On Friday, the latter presented President Vladimir Putin with a plan to rebuild Mariupol in three years, a goal that seems ambitious, given the scale of the destruction.
The strategic port of Mariupol was captured in May by Russian forces after weeks of siege that devastated much of the city. Residential buildings, schools, shops, streets: nothing has been spared. Before the Russian military offensive, the city, built on the shores of the Sea of Azov, had more than 400,000 inhabitants. But it has largely become depopulated, with many residents fleeing the fighting.
The population is expected to rise to 350,000 by 2025, Khousnullin said, without specifying whether the Russian authorities plan to implement a repopulation policy.
The Russian Deputy Prime Minister also indicated that the Russian occupation forces planned to redevelop the devastated industrial zone of the Azovstal steelworks, where the last Ukrainian defenders had taken refuge, as a “technopole”.
For the time being, the inhabitants of Mariupol continue to suffer from multiple shortages, with a very patchy restoration of water and electricity.
Russian occupation forces are trying to bring some semblance of normalcy back to conquered areas in southern and eastern Ukraine. In several of them, the administrations installed by Moscow have indicated that they are preparing annexation referendums to formalize their attachment to Russia.
Ukrainian entrepreneur killed
On the ground, Russian strikes continue on Ukrainian cities, including Mykolaiv in the south, where one of the country’s most important agricultural entrepreneurs, Oleksiï Vadatoursky, 74, was killed with his wife on Sunday.
President Volodymyr Zelensky paid tribute to Oleksiï Vadatursky, whom he described as “the hero of Ukraine”.
The city was heavily shelled again on Monday, according to regional governor Vitali Kim, who said three were killed.
Mykolaiv is close to the front in southern Ukraine, where Kyiv forces are conducting a counter-offensive.
AFP journalists also noted intense Russian bombardment of the city of Bakhmout in eastern Ukraine. Three civilians were killed in the Donetsk region on Sunday, including two in Bakhmout, and 16 others were injured, local authorities said on Monday.
The Ukrainian president on Saturday accused the Russian forces of practicing a tactic of “terror” by their bombardments on Ukrainian cities, and called on the inhabitants of Donetsk to a general evacuation.
At least 200,000 civilians still live in the territories of the Donetsk region that are not under Russian occupation, according to an estimate by Ukrainian authorities.
The targeted Russian fleet
In Sevastopol, a port city that continued to house Russia’s Black Sea Fleet after the Soviet Union broke up under an agreement with kyiv, but was formally annexed by Moscow along with the rest of Crimea in 2014, a drone exploded on Sunday in the courtyard of the Russian fleet headquarters, injuring six, according to Governor Mikhail Razvojayev.
Pointed out by the governor, the Ukrainian authorities have denied being behind this unprecedented attack.
The Ukrainian Navy has hypothesized a pretext to cancel the planned festivities in Sevastopol for fear of a real attack.
Russian President Vladimir Putin marked Russian Fleet Day away from Sevastopol in Saint Petersburg (northwest) with a speech promising the arrival “in the coming months” of a new hypersonic cruise missile who “knows no obstacles”.
Separately, the International Committee of the Red Cross said on Sunday that it had still not received official permission from Moscow to travel to Olenivka, in Russian-occupied territory in the Donetsk region, where an explosion in a hangar housing captured Ukrainian soldiers left 50 dead and 73 seriously injured. On Saturday evening, the Russian Ministry of Defense claimed to have “officially invited” experts from the UN and the ICRC to go there “in the interest of an objective investigation”.
Ukraine had on Friday asked the ICRC and the United Nations Human Rights Monitoring Mission, which had supervised in May the surrender negotiated with the Russians of the defenders of the Azovstal factory in Mariupol (south- east), to go to Olenivka. President Zelensky had stressed that the UN and the ICRC had “guaranteed” the lives of Ukrainian soldiers and had to “react”.