On Wednesday, Ukraine said a first commercial cargo ship left the port of Odessa in defiance of Russia, which had threatened to sink such ships since its withdrawal from the agreement authorizing the export of Ukrainian grain.
The announcement of the exit to the Black Sea of ??the ship Joseph Schulte, flying the flag of Hong Kong, took place despite a new night bombardment of cereal infrastructures on the Danube, in the Odessa region. In addition, kyiv has announced the liberation of a locality on the southern front, where most of the effort of its difficult counter-offensive to liberate the territories occupied by Russia is concentrated.
“The container ship Joseph Schulte […] has left the port of Odessa and is sailing along the temporary corridor established for civilian ships,” announced Oleksandre Kubrakov, the Ukrainian Minister in charge of Infrastructure. Ukraine announced last week to open “temporary” corridors in the Black Sea to challenge Russia’s blockade.
“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, departing from the port of Odessa, “welcomed Volodymyr Zelensky on X (ex-Twitter) in the evening. The Ukrainian President also denounced the Russian strikes on Ukrainian port infrastructure. “Every Russian attack on these ports is a blow to world food prices, social and political stability in Africa and Asia,” he said.
Sign of the risks, during the weekend, a Russian warship fired warning shots at a cargo ship heading for Izmail, a port on the Danube in southern Ukraine, which has become one of the main routes for output of Ukrainian agricultural products since Moscow ended in July the agreement on grain exports, a source of income for Kiev.
The Russian army also continued to target the Danube port infrastructure with its bombardments, launching another drone attack overnight from Tuesday to Wednesday. “As a result of enemy strikes on one of the Danube ports: grain warehouses were damaged,” Odessa region governor Oleg Kiper announced on social media.
Romania strongly condemned Wednesday the new Russian attacks against the port infrastructures of the Danube, crucial for the transport of Ukrainian cereals, after several strikes on the doors of this NATO country in recent weeks. “I strongly condemn the repeated Russian attacks against innocent people and civilian infrastructure, including against grain silos in the Ukrainian ports of Reni and Izmail”, reacted on X (ex-Twitter) the Romanian Foreign Minister Luminita Odobescu. “Through these flagrant violations of international law, Russia continues to endanger food and shipping security in the Black Sea,” she charged.
Ukrainian forces said they shot down 13 drones overnight in the southern regions of Odessa and Mykolaiv. And Donetsk region governor Pavlo Kyrylenko on Wednesday morning reported four people killed and seven others injured in the region by Russian forces in the past 24 hours.
With regard to the difficult Ukrainian counter-offensive underway since June, the Ministry of Defense announced in the morning the liberation of Urozhaine, a locality in the Donetsk region, on the southern front, the main attack axis of the Ukrainians.
“Ourojaine has been released. Our defenders are stationed nearby. The offensive continues,” Deputy Defense Minister Ganna Maliar said in a statement posted on social media. The capture of the town had been expected since the weekend. 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. His army is also in difficulty in the northeast, around Kupiansk.
Moscow says for its part that the Ukrainian troops are at the end of their resources and that their counter-offensive remains a failure. “The resources of the Ukrainian army are almost exhausted,” Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu said on Tuesday.
kyiv, which is still demanding more and more Western aid, ensures that its counter-offensive is advancing methodically, facing Russian defense lines made of trenches, minefields and anti-tank traps. Russian territory bordering Ukraine continues to be targeted by Ukrainian strikes and drones, some reaching Moscow. One person was killed and two others injured on Tuesday in a Ukrainian bombardment in the Russian region of Belgorod, regional governor Vyacheslav Gladkov said on Wednesday.
Economically, Russia’s difficulties are real. Russia has also seen its currency collapse, inflation pick up again and its foreign trade fall, in particular its sales of hydrocarbons, suffering from the restrictive measures adopted by the West. After long procrastination, the Russian central bank finally resolved on Tuesday to a surprise increase in its key interest rate from 8.5% to 12%.
