A ship loaded with grain left Ukraine on Monday for the first time since Russia invaded the region on February 24, and transport in the Black Sea was blocked.
The vessel set sail from the northwestern port of Odessa, one of the country’s most important, under a safe passage pact established after Turkey and the UN brokered a grain export deal between the two warring countries last month.
The ship carries 26,000 tonnes of maize, according to the UN, and had been stranded in port since February 18. The Razoni, as the vessel was named, flies the Sierra Leone flag and is due to dock in Bosphorus, near Istanbul, on Tuesday to be inspected by authorities from the agreement’s counterparts, according to Turkish Defense Minister Hulusi Akar. Afterwards, the vessel will take the cargo to Lebanon.
On Twitter, Ukrainian foreign minister Dmitro Kuleba described the resumption of exports as “a day of relief for the world, especially for our friends in the Middle East, Asia and Africa”.
Moscow, in turn, said it considered the export exit “very positive”. “This is a good opportunity to prove the effectiveness of the agreement, and we hope that the agreements will be implemented effectively by all parties,” said Dmitri Peskov, a spokesman for the Kremlin.
The Razoni was guided by a Ukrainian ship through a labyrinth of mines built by Kiev to defend the country’s coastline; the Russian Navy, which controls the region, granted safe passage, as provided for in the agreement signed in Istanbul a few days ago.
UN Secretary-General António Guterres said in a statement that he expects many more ships to move from ports, “and that this will bring stability and relief to global food security”. The World Food Program also plans to buy and ship 30,000 tonnes of wheat on a ship chartered by the United Nations.
Russia and Ukraine account for nearly a third of global wheat exports. The agreement between the countries aims to allow safe passage of grain to and from the ports of Tchornomorsk, Odessa and the port of Yuzhin, thus alleviating a more serious crisis of food shortages and rising cereal prices on the global market. .
According to Ukraine’s Infrastructure Minister Oleksandr Kubrakov, the unblocking of the ports should provide at least US$ 1 billion (about R$ 5.17 billion) to the country’s economy and will allow the agricultural sector to plan the sowing season of the next year.
Ukrainian presidential officials said 16 ships were docked in Ukraine’s Black Sea ports, carrying nearly 600,000 tonnes of cargo, most of it grain. In all, about 20 million tons of grain are trapped in the country.
Ukraine exported about 3 million tonnes of agricultural products in July via rivers and railways, according to the Agricultural Business Associations Group reported on Monday on social media. The figure represents half of the monthly value that the country used to export before the conflict. The association said exports grew by around 12% from the previous month.
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