Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky on Wednesday called the departure of a first cargo ship from the Black Sea port of Odessa an “important step”, a challenge to Russia, which has threatened to sink such ships since it ended the war. agreement allowing Ukraine to export its grain.
The announcement of the release of the container ship “Joseph Schulte”, which flies the Hong Kong flag, came despite a new Russian night shelling of Ukraine’s grain infrastructure on the Danube in the Odessa region.
“An important step in restoring freedom”
This building “sails along the corridor temporarily established for civilian ships,” announced Oleksandre Kubrakov, the Ukrainian minister in charge of infrastructure.
In the afternoon, the “Joseph Schulte” was heading to the Turkish port of Ambarli on the Marmara Sea.
“Ukraine has just taken an important step in restoring freedom of navigation in the Black Sea. The first civilian ship has taken the new Ukrainian humanitarian corridor, starting from the port of Odessa,” Volodymyr Zelensky greeted at night in X (former -Twitter ).
The Ukrainian authorities had announced last week the opening of these maritime corridors on a “provisional” basis. And this despite the attitude of Russia, which last weekend fired warning shots at a cargo ship heading to Izmail, a Danube port in southern Ukraine.
This river has become one of the main outlets for Ukrainian agricultural products since Moscow canceled the agreement on the export of grain, a source of income for kyiv, in July.
Source: BFM TV
