Despite widely condemned Russian missile attacks on the port of Odesa, Ukraine vows that it will continue to prepare shipments of the millions of tonnes of grain stockpiled there and desperately needed on world markets. The first shipments are expected to start this week, Kyiv says, starting with Chornomorsk port, then from the ports in Odesa and Pivdennyi along its south-western coast.
The attacks, Russia claims, were on military targets not excluded by the deal signed between Ukraine, Turkey, the UN and Russia in Istanbul on Friday to allow safe passage for grain shipments through a mined seaway linking the port to the Bosphorus Strait and Turkey. Russia says it is committed to the deal, part of which will also allow it to resume its own agricultural exports.
Ukrainian officials have turned up to the coordination centre being set up in Istanbul to oversee the deal, which will involve extensive demining operations and inspection missions to ensure that the ships do not carry weapons.
Some 22 million tonnes of wheat, corn and other grains are currently in stores in Ukraine awaiting export. The blockade comes as 47 million people globally are at risk of acute hunger, according to the World Food Programme. Prices have soared.
Grain exports are also crucial to Ukraine’s economy, contributing in normal times as much as €1 billion a month to the country’s budget, finance ministry officials say. The blockade has caused its exports to drop to one-sixth of their prewar level.
The welcome agreement for what is an unusual partial ceasefire between the two warring parties – “unprecedented” according to the UN Secretary General – has raised some hopes for wider talks between Ukraine and Russia. Turkey’s President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, who helped broker the deal, has predicted it could set the scene for steps to end the war altogether. But it is an optimism not shared elsewhere, not least in Kyiv, where there is talk of a growing Ukrainian counteroffensive aimed at retaking territory in another coastal province, Kherson.