“Ukraine has just taken an important step in restoring freedom of navigation in the Black Sea”, welcomed on X (ex-Twitter)Wednesday, August 16, the Ukrainian President, Volodymyr Zelensky, after the announcement of the departure of a first cargo from the port of Odessa via a new maritime corridor set up by kyiv.
The exit of the container ship Joseph Schulteflying the flag of Hong Kong, is akin to a challenge to Moscow as Russia threatened to target any boat sailing to or from Ukrainian ports, following the expiration of the grain deal that allowed Ukrainian goods, since the summer of 2022, to leave the ports in the south of the country despite the blockade.
The building, which “navigates along the corridor provisionally established for civilian ships”, according to Olexandr Kubrakov, the Minister of Infrastructure of Ukraine, was heading in the afternoon of Wednesday towards the Turkish port of Ambarli in the Sea of Marmara. It is the first cargo to leave the major port of Odessa, in southern Ukraine, since July 16, the minister said.
New Russian attacks on port infrastructure
The Ukrainian authorities had announced, on August 10, to open ” provisional “ such sea lanes. And this despite the attitude of Russia, whose army has a large hold on the Black Sea, which last weekend fired warning shots at a cargo ship heading for Izmail, a Danube port in southern Ukraine.
This river has become one of the main exit routes for Ukrainian agricultural products since Moscow canceled in July the agreement on grain exports, a source of income for Kiev. The Russian army continued overnight from Tuesday to Wednesday to bombard the Danube port infrastructure, with a new drone attack. “Grain warehouses have been damaged”announced the governor of the Odessa region, Oleh Kiper.
Romania has strongly condemned these Russian strikes, after several other attacks on the gates of this NATO country in recent weeks. “Through these gross violations of international law, Russia continues to endanger food and navigation security in the Black Sea,” reacted the Romanian Foreign Minister, Luminita Odobescu.
These Russian raids along this river show that Russian President Vladimir Putin “laughs” the supply of essential foodstuffs to developing countries, reacted, for its part, American diplomacy, which called on Moscow to restore ” immediately “ grain agreement.