Ukraine is ready to start transporting grain from two Black Sea ports under a UN-brokered deal, but no date has been set for the first shipment, Ukrainian Infrastructure Minister Oleksandr Kubrakov said on Friday.
He told reporters in the port of Odessa that 17 ships trapped under a five-month Russian blockade of Ukraine’s ports were already loaded with grain and one more was “being loaded as we speak.” He said he hoped the first ships would start leaving the port by the end of this week.
Russia and Ukraine are major global suppliers of wheat and the deal they signed in Istanbul last week aims to ease the international food crisis exacerbated by Russia’s invasion of its neighbor on February 24.
“After the signing of the grain initiative in Istanbul, the Ukrainian side has made all the necessary preparations for… navigation in the Black Sea, to start the export of our grain products from our ports,” Kubrakov said.
President Volodymyr Zelensky’s office announced that the president visited the Black Sea port of Hornomorsk on Friday. He also said that Ukraine is ready to start shipping grain and that Kyiv is waiting for a signal from its international partners to start the first shipment.
The agreement aims to allow safe passage for grain shipments in and out of the ports of Odessa, Khornomorsk and Pivdenii, which have been blockaded by Russia since the start of its invasion. Moscow blames Ukraine for stagnation of shipments.
Kubrakov, who signed the deal for Ukraine, said that Khornomorsk and Odessa were ready to start transporting grain and that he hoped the port of Pivdenny would also be ready by the end of this week.
Source: Capital
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