The Turkish cargo ship Polarnet left the Ukrainian port of Chernomorsk with 12,000 tonnes of corn on August 5, 2022 (AFP/OLEKSANDR GIMANOV)
Three new shipments of cereals, crucial for global food security, left Ukraine on Friday morning as a report by the NGO Amnesty International, denounced by President Volodymyr Zelensky, accuses kyiv of endangering the lives of civilians in the war with Russia.
Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, on the strength of his recent diplomatic success on cereal exports, must also meet his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin in Sochi, on the Black Sea, in order to obtain the opening of negotiations, if possible in Istanbul. , in view of a truce between Moscow and kyiv.
Five days after the departure from the Ukrainian port of Odessa of the first grain shipment since the beginning of the Russian invasion on February 24, three new shipments of grain left Ukraine in convoy, beginning a series of regular rotations to supply the agricultural markets, the Turkish Ministry of Defense announced.
The three vessels, loaded with corn, will serve Ireland, England and Turkey, the ministry said in a statement. At the same time, a cargo ship is heading to the port of Chernomorsk to load grain there, the ministry said.
All are progressing under the watchful eye of the Joint Coordination Center (JCC) established in Istanbul under the terms of the international agreement signed in Istanbul on July 22.
Russia and Ukraine have signed two separate agreements, validated by Turkey and the United Nations, which allow exports of Ukrainian cereals blocked by the war since February 24 and those of Russian agricultural products despite Western sanctions.
These two agreements should help alleviate the global food crisis which has seen prices soar in some of the poorest countries due to the blocking of Ukrainian ports.
– “Respect humanitarian law” –
But progress on grain exports is partly overshadowed by an Amnesty International report accusing kyiv of endangering civilian lives.
In the document released Thursday after a four-month investigation, Amnesty International accused the Ukrainian military of establishing military bases in schools and hospitals and launching attacks from populated areas, a tactic it says violates the international humanitarian.
“Being in a defensive position does not exempt the Ukrainian army from respecting international humanitarian law,” said Agnès Callamard, the NGO’s secretary general.
President Zelensky reacted strongly Thursday evening, in his daily video statement, accusing the NGO of “attempting to grant amnesty to the terrorist state” of Russia and of “transferring responsibility from the aggressor to the victim”.
“The aggression against our state is unjustified, invasive and terrorist. If someone writes a report in which the victim and the aggressor are in some way put on an equal footing, if some data on the victim is analyzed and the actions of the perpetrator ignored, this cannot be tolerated,” Zelensky added.
The head of Ukrainian diplomacy, Dmytro Kouleba, also said he was “outraged” by the “unfair” accusations of Amnesty International which, according to him, creates “a false balance between the oppressor and the victim, between the country which destroys hundreds and thousands of civilians, cities, territories and the country which is desperately defending itself”.
Amnesty International, however, in its report, insisted that the Ukrainian tactics “in no way justify the indiscriminate Russian attacks” which have hit civilian populations.
– Eight dead at a bus stop –
Russian invasion of Ukraine: the situation in the east of the country (AFP/)
On the ground, Russian bombardments targeted several other Ukrainian towns and villages on Thursday, including Mykolaiv, in the south, where apartment buildings were damaged in two neighborhoods, according to Mayor Oleksandre Senkevich.
Eight people were killed and four injured on Thursday when a Russian strike hit a bus stop in Toretsk, near the frontline in eastern Ukraine, the regional governor said.
In Kharkiv, the country’s second largest city, local authorities on Thursday reported Russian missile attacks that hit industrial areas.
Ukrainian forces are leading a counter-offensive in the south of the country, where they claim to have taken over more than 50 villages controlled by Moscow.
Ukrainian civilians take part in military training in Lviv, Ukraine, on August 3, 2022, amid the war between Ukraine and Russia (AFP/YURIY DYACHYSHYN)
Several member states of the European Union and NATO provide kyiv with sophisticated weapons to help it defend itself, and Brussels has adopted a series of sanctions.
The European Council said in a statement on Thursday evening that it had added former pro-Russian Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych (2010-2014) and his son to the list of personalities targeted by European sanctions for their alleged role in the security threat to the EU. regard to Ukraine.
Mr. Yanukovych had been overthrown by a popular uprising against the pro-Russian turn taken by his government. Following its defeat, Moscow seized the Ukrainian peninsula of Crimea and an enclave in the eastern region of Donbass.
© 2022 AFP
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