A Ukrainian official said Monday that Kyiv hopes it can begin shipping grain out of its Black Sea ports this week under a UN-brokered deal that was signed in Turkey this past Friday.
“We believe that over the next 24 hours we will be ready to work to resume exports from our ports. We are talking about the port of Chornomorsk. It will be the first, then there will be Odesa, then the port of Pivdeny,” said Ukrainian Deputy Infrastructure Minister Yuriy Vaskov.
Vaskov said grain should be moving out of all of Ukraine’s ports within two weeks. “In the next two weeks, we will be technically ready to carry out grain exports from all Ukrainian ports,” he said. Under the deal, Ukraine will escort ships carrying grain and fertilizer out of its heavily mined ports, and Russia won’t attack the area as shipments are moving.
A UN official said that grain shipments could start within a few days. “We expect that the first ship may move within a few days,” said deputy UN spokesman Farhan Haq.
The agreement established a coordination center in Istanbul that will oversee grain shipments as they travel out of Ukraine and leave the Black Sea through the Bosphorus Strait.
“The Joint Coordination Center will be liaising with the shipping industry and publishing detailed procedures for ships in the very near future,” Haq said. Russia, Ukraine, Turkey, and the UN will all have representatives at the coordination center, which will also oversee the inspection of the ships leaving Ukrainian ports.
Russian strikes on the port of Odesa on Saturday raised doubts about the implementation of the grain deal. But Ukrainian officials appear to still be ready to cooperate on the agreement, and Russia said the Odesa strikes shouldn’t impact the grain shipments.
If the deal is implemented, it could unlock an estimated 22 million tons of grain that have been stuck in Ukraine since the war started.
Most of it stolen by the US imposed Nazi regime and the oligarchs while they burn down the crops in liberated areas down south.
couple weeks ago the story was that ukraine had placed explosive mines in their harbors.
so no ships will be going in or out until those mines are removed.
or maybe that story was just more BS like almost every other story is.
it’s pretty sad when the internet news is the same BS that the TV news is.
The story I’ve heard is that Ukraine know where the mines are and will guide commercial ships around them.
Missing:
1) Following the Russian demand, Ukrainian ships to be inspected so they’re not used to bring back weapons;
2) EU has publicly declared Russian grain shipping does not violate sanctions – so that banks, shippers, insurers don’t avoid grain business w/Russia for fear of penalties.
The US must provide the above sanctions assurances too – or be seen as hamstringing a deal to get Ukrainian grain moving and reduce world hunger.
NYT, 7/22, “Here’s how the grain deal between Ukraine and Russia will work”:
“Russia is also a major exporter of grains and fertilizer and the agreement should make it easier to sell those goods on the world market.
The Kremlin has repeatedly claimed that its stocks cannot be exported because of sanctions imposed by the United States and the European Union.
The measures do not in fact affect those goods, but private shipping companies, insurers, banks and other businesses have been reluctant to help Russia export grains and fertilizers, fearing that they might run afoul of sanctions or that doing business with Russia might harm their reputations.
Offering reassurance, the European Union on Thursday issued a legal clarification to its sanctions saying that various banks and other companies involved in the grain trade were not in fact banned.
The United Nations said that, armed with similar assurances by the United States, it held talks with the private sector, and that trade from Russia — especially the Russian port of Novorossiysk — should pick up pace.”
What if, as appears to be the case, Washington moves weapons by land into the port area?
Honestly don’t know…on one hand, from the start the US has moved in weapons, w/US intelligence helping to move them about in the country…
…on other hand, as I understand it, at some point Russia will try to take Odessa, one of 3 port cities…
…in which case, hard to see shipping happening in a city at war…
…so, yea, it’s not a strong agreement…
…still, for now, seems Ukraine and Russia both have some interest in the agreement working…I mean, it’s presumably why they negotiated…vs. either side immediately scuttling it…
…And as reported, the Russian strike on Odessa seems not to have hit an actual port – deliberately, it seems…perhaps as a warning against a ‘white flag’ (right term?) operation such as you envision…
Thanks for the thoroughness. And yes, the concern is not at warehousing, but strategic emplacement?
The port facilities dealing with grain are protected. And the ships carrying the grain trade. Nothing else. Literally. There is no cease fire. There is no hint even that the Ukraianian ports are tout court protected under the agreement. Russia is perfectly willing to let the Ukraine load and ship whatever amount of grain it can and wants to out of its Black Sea ports. What Russia will not do, and never agreed to do, is to allow Ukrainian military assets and infrastructure to somehow piggyback on the agreement and be safe and “out of bounds” in the ports.
Russia produces 3 times as much grain as Ukraine in a typical year. Relief from sanctions on Russia could make a much greater difference on famine relief than grain shipped from Ukraine. I assume that numerous ports outside the Black Sea will be used to ship Russian grain. But I don’t know how much grain this agreement will release.
Exactly! The important part of the deal is the agreement of the UN to seek the lifting of indirect sanctions and other impedimenta to the export of Russian food and feritilizer. Russia never interfered with grain exports from the Ukraine, and the fact that the Ukraine closed and then mined its own ports is what made it impossible for it to export its own grain. And so the Russian pledge to continue to not interfere with those exports, provided that Turkey makes sure that this is not used to ship weapons into the Ukraine, is pretty much just a restatement of the status quo. As for the Russian attacks on military targets in Odessa and Nikolaev, that has nothing to do with the agreements, and is not even arguably a violation of them. So, it is BS to say that these attacks “put the agreements in doubt” or any such formulation. BS and typically, and grossly, dishonest and cynical Kievian Neo Nazi entity propaganda.