Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky on Wednesday called the departure of a first cargo ship from the Black Sea port of Odessa a “significant milestone”, a challenge to Russia which has threatened to sink such vessels since it ended to the agreement allowing Ukraine to export its cereals.
The announcement of the release of the container ship “Joseph Schulte”, flying the flag of Hong Kong, took place despite a new Russian night bombardment of Ukrainian grain infrastructure on the Danube, in the Odessa region.
This building “navigates 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 for the Turkish port of Ambarli in the Sea of ??Marmara.
“Ukraine has just taken an important step in the restoration of freedom of navigation in the Black Sea. The first civilian ship has taken the new Ukrainian humanitarian corridor, departing from the port of Odessa”, welcomed in the Mr. Zelensky party on X (ex-Twitter).
The Ukrainian authorities had announced last week to open such maritime corridors on a “provisional” basis.
And this despite the attitude of Russia, which last weekend fired warning shots at a cargo ship heading for Izmail, a port on the Danube in southern Ukraine.
This river has become one of the main exit routes for Ukrainian agricultural products since Moscow canceled in July the agreement on grain exports, a source of income for Kiev.
The Russian army continued overnight from Tuesday to Wednesday to bombard the Danube port infrastructure, with a new drone attack.
As a result, “grain warehouses have been damaged”, announced the governor of the Odessa region Oleg Kiper.
These Russian raids along this river show that Russian President Vladimir Putin “doesn’t care” about the supply of essential foodstuffs to developing countries, American diplomacy reacted on Wednesday.
Another Russian bombardment in the afternoon caused the death of an 18-year-old man and injured four in the Dnipro region, in the center-east, according to local authorities.
Regarding the difficult Ukrainian counter-offensive underway since June, Kiev announced on Wednesday the liberation of Urozhaine, a locality in the Donetsk region, on the southern front, the main axis of attack for the Ukrainians.
Ukraine had already claimed some gains in the eastern and southern parts of its territory on Monday, particularly around Bakhmout in the east. Advances that remain modest, after two months of fighting.
The Ukrainian army recognizes a situation that has become “more complicated” in the northeast, around Kupiansk, where the Russians have been on the offensive for several weeks.
“Every day, the enemy tries to break through our defense in different places,” said Land Forces Commander Oleksandre Syrsky.
Local authorities are also encouraging the evacuation of the most vulnerable people.
“I’m sick and I have to get my grandson out of there,” a resident of the Kupiansk region, Vira Vouneskou, 53, told AFP before getting into a minibus and asking her relatives. to “not cry”.
The Russian army assured Wednesday that it had further “improved” its positions in this sector of the front.
“It is absolutely clear that we have learned to counter” the Western weapons supplied to Kiev, for his part let go of the former Russian president Dmitry Medvedev, adding: “the counter-offensive attempts carried out by Ukraine (.. .) are essentially unsuccessful”.
He made these remarks on the occasion of the visit of an exhibition presenting on the outskirts of Moscow “trophies” of the Russian army in Ukraine, including French tanks and British machines.
Rare quantified estimate of part of the forces deployed by Russia in its neighbor, the mayor of Moscow, Sergei Sobyanin, meanwhile affirmed that nearly 45,000 Muscovites were currently fighting on Ukrainian soil.
Kiev, which is still demanding more and more Western aid, always ensures that its counter-offensive is progressing methodically, against Russian defense lines made of trenches, minefields and anti-tank traps.
At the same time, Russian territory continues to be the target of Ukrainian strikes.
One person was killed and two others injured on Tuesday during a bombardment in the Russian border region of Belgorod, regional governor Vyacheslav Gladkov said on Wednesday.
The Russian security services (FSB) on the same day claimed to have “eliminated” four Ukrainian “saboteurs” who were trying to enter from Ukraine in the Briansk region, also close to Ukrainian territory. The second incursion attempt in two days announced by Moscow.
16/08/2023 22:06:04 – Kiev (Ukraine) (AFP) © 2023 AFP
