“The Razoni ship left the port of Odessa bound for the port of Tripoli in Lebanon. It is expected on August 2 in Istanbul. It will continue its journey to its destination following the inspections that will be carried out in Istanbul”, announced the Turkish Ministry of Defence.
According to Ukrainian Infrastructure Minister Oleksandr Kubrakov, the boat is loaded with 26,000 tons of corn.
The agreement signed on July 22 in Istanbul between representatives of Russia, Ukraine, Turkey and the United Nations allows the resumption of Ukrainian exports under international supervision.
A similar agreement signed simultaneously also 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.
On the ground, Russian strikes continue on Ukrainian cities, including Mykolaiv, where the most violent bombardment since the start of the war killed at least two residents on Sunday, according to local authorities.
These strikes caused the death of Oleksiï Vadatoursky, owner of the main Ukrainian grain logistics company and his wife. “He was one of the most important agricultural entrepreneurs in the country, a key figure in the region and a major employer,” said Mikhailo Podoliak, adviser to the Ukrainian presidency, on Telegram, saying he believed in a targeted strike.
In his Sunday address, President Volodymyr Zelensky paid tribute to Oleksiï Vadatoursky, whom he described as “the hero of Ukraine”.
During the night from Sunday to Monday, “powerful explosions” sounded again in this southern city, its mayor, Oleksandr Senkevych said on Telegram.
The Ukrainian president had accused Saturday the Russian forces of practicing a tactic of “terror” by their bombardments on the Ukrainian cities, announcing the general evacuation of the population of the Donetsk region (east).
Other strikes hit the regions of Kharkiv (east) and Sumy (north-east). Some buildings were damaged in “a series of explosions” in Kharkiv, announced the mayor of the second Ukrainian city, Igor Terekhov.
One person was killed and two injured in the Sumy region which has been the target of “more than 50 strikes” in the past 24 hours, according to Governor Dmytro Zhyvytsky.
Saturday evening, Mr. Zelensky called on the inhabitants of the Donetsk region to comply with the evacuation order, to escape “Russian terror” and the bombardments on this territory in the east of the country, largely under control. from Moscow.
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 the Ukrainian authorities.
In Sevastopol, a port city that continued to house the Russian 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, Governor Mikhail Razvojayev said on Telegram.
“The Ukrainian-Nazis have decided to spoil the Day of the Russian Military Fleet for us,” wrote the governor, using a term commonly used by the authorities and Russian propaganda to designate the forces of kyiv.
Ukrainian authorities have denied being behind the unprecedented attack, calling the Russian accusations a “deliberate provocation”.
The Ukrainian Navy has hypothesized a pretext to cancel the planned festivities in Sevastopol for fear of a real attack.
Russian President Vladimir Putin celebrated 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 it had still not received official permission from Moscow to travel to Olenivka, 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 said it had “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 get to Olenivka. President Zelensky had stressed that the UN and the ICRC had “guaranteed” the lives of Ukrainian soldiers and had to “react”.