The Sierra Leone-flagged cargo ship Razoni sails under Yavuz Sultan Selim Bridge after being inspected by Russian, Ukrainian, Turkish and U.N. officials at the entrance of the Bosphorus Strait in Istanbul, Turkey, Wednesday, Aug. 3, 2022. Razoni, loaded up with 26,000 tons of corn, is the first cargo ship to leave Ukraine since the Russian invasion, and set sail from Odesa on Monday, August 1, 2022. Its final destination is Lebanon. (AP Photo/Emrah Gurel)
ISTANBUL (AP) — The first grain ship to leave Ukraine and cross the Black Sea under a wartime deal passed inspection Wednesday in Istanbul and headed on to Lebanon. Ukraine said 17 other vessels were “loaded and waiting permission to leave,” but there was no word yet on when they could depart.
A joint civilian inspection team spent three hours checking the cargo and crew of the Sierra Leone-flagged ship Razoni, which left Odesa on Monday carrying Ukrainian corn, a U.N. statement said.
The Joint Coordination Center team included officials from Ukraine, Russia, Turkey and the United Nations, who signed deals last month to create safe Black Sea shipping corridors to export Ukraine’s desperately needed agricultural products as Russia’s war upon its neighbor grinds on.
Ukraine is a major global grain supplier but the war had blocked most exports, so the July 22 deal aimed to ease food security around the globe. World food prices have been soaring in a crisis blamed on the war, supply chain problems and COVID-19. Mistrust between Kyiv and Moscow has kept a cloud over the deal, which lasts for 120 days but can be renewed.
Although U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken called Razoni’s journey a “significant step,” no other ships have left from Ukraine in the past 48 hours and officials on all sides have given no explanations for that delay.
Although U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken called Razoni’s journey a “significant step,” no other ships have left from Ukraine in the past 48 hours and officials on all sides have given no explanations for that delay.
Rafael Grossi, director general of the International Atomic Energy Agency, said in an interview Tuesday with The Associated Press that the situation is getting more perilous every day at the Zaporizhzhia plant in the southeastern Ukrainian city of Enerhodar, which Russian troops seized in early March.
“Every principle of nuclear safety has been violated” at the plant, he said. “What is at stake is extremely serious and extremely grave and dangerous.”
Meanwhile, Russian forces kept up their bombardment of the southern Ukrainian city of Mykolaiv, hitting it with shells twice over the past 24 hours — around 9 p.m. on Tuesday and 5 a.m. on Wednesday, Mykolaiv regional governor Vitaliy Kim reported.
The shelling damaged a pier, an industrial enterprise, residential buildings, a garage cooperative, a supermarket and a pharmacy, Kim said.
Mykolaiv is a southern port city on the Black Sea. The Russians said in April they wanted control over not just eastern, but southern Ukraine, cutting off the country from its Black Sea coast and creating a possible land corridor to the breakaway Moldovan region of Transnistria.
The mayor of Mykolaiv, Oleksandr Sienkevych, told The Associated Press that 131 civilians, including a child, have died so far in the city from Russian rocket and artillery shelling and another 590 others were seriously injured, including seven children.
In eastern Ukraine, Russian shelling killed at least four civilians in Donetsk province in 24 hours, Ukraine’s presidential office said Wednesday. Amid the relentless onslaught by Moscow’s forces, Zelenskyy issued an order to all those remaining in the embattled province to evacuate as soon as possible.
Robert Badendieck and Mehmet Guzel in Istanbul contributed to this report.
Copyright 2021 Associated Press. All rights reserved.
Source: https://apnews.com/article/russia-ukraine-middle-east-istanbul-98121dfdef3f236ebdcd4d99d020c14a
