Ukraine has said it hopes to start exporting grain from its ports this week, despite Russia’s attack on Odesa 12 hours after Moscow agreed to allow Kyiv safe passage for the commodity.
The first ships may move from the country’s Black Sea ports within a few days, said deputy UN spokesperson Farhan Haq. Details of the procedures will soon be published by a joint coordination centre that is liaising with the shipping industry, said Haq.
The international community’s relations with Russia hit a new low on Saturday after the missile attack, which came shortly after Russia’s defence minister, Sergei Shoigu, signed an export agreement in Istanbul.
Ukraine’s infrastructure minister, Oleksandr Kubrakov, has said Ukraine would continue preparations to export grain and food, starting with Chornomorsk port, then the ports in Odesa and Pivdennyi along its south-western coast, which it still controls.
Ukraine signed the agreement with the United Nations and Turkey and requested Russia sign the same, but separate agreement.
Kubrakov, who signed on behalf of Kyiv, said although Ukraine did not trust Russia “it trusts its allies and partners, which is why the agreement … was signed with the UN and Turkey and not Russia”.
Russia initially told Turkey’s defence ministry it had not been involved in the strike on Odesa’s port. Later it U-turned, claiming its missile hit a Ukrainian vessel carrying western-supplied arms.
The attack caused wheat prices to jump, worsening the global food crisis caused in large part by Russia’s blockade of Ukraine’s ports. For Ukraine, opening up the ports is also key, as food exports are a significant part of its economy.
“It’s a question of the survival of our entire agricultural industry,” said Kubrakov at a press conference on Monday. “It is very important that our farmers receive funding this year and have the opportunity to carry out the sowing campaign for the next season, because without this we will lose the entire agricultural cycle.”
“We all saw perfectly on Saturday that it is not a problem for them to shell the port infrastructure. This is the main risk [to the deal] and we understand that it can scare the market.”
But opening Ukraine’s ports will not solve the food crisis, Tjada D’Oyen McKenna, CEO for the NGO Mercy Corps said in a statement.
“Today’s global food catastrophe goes far beyond the 20 million tons of grain that have been stuck in Ukraine. Spiking fuel prices are driving up the cost of staple goods across nearly every country where we work,” said D’Oyen McKenna.
While she recognised that the war in Ukraine would continue to impact Africa and the Middle East, which are heavily dependent on grain imports, D’Oyen McKenna stressed that global food systems were already failing due to Covid-19 and climate change.
The attack on Odesa is likely to strengthen military support for Ukraine and weaken international appetite to push Kyiv to negotiate with Moscow.
Sergei Lavrov, the Russian foreign minister, arrived in Uganda yesterday on the latest stop of his tour of Africa aimed at rallying support on the continent for Russia’s war.
He said: “We are determined to help the people of eastern Ukraine to liberate themselves from the burden of this absolutely unacceptable regime. We will certainly help the Ukrainian people to get rid of the regime, which is absolutely anti-people and anti-historical.”
Lavrov further said he saw no barriers to the grain exports after the strike on the port, as there was nothing in the agreement which prevented Russia from targeting Ukrainian military infrastructure.
Many African leaders have refused to condemn the invasion and have accused the US and Nato of starting or prolonging the conflict. However, hundreds of millions on the continent are facing rising food prices and, in some cases, a severe shortage because the blockade of Ukrainian ports by Russia’s Black Sea fleet is trapping tens of millions of tonnes of grain, dramatically exacerbating existing supply chain problems.
Lavrov is seeking to convince African leaders and, to a much lesser extent, ordinary people that Moscow cannot be blamed either for the conflict or the food crisis. Russia has blamed the blockade on Ukrainian mines.
Ukraine’s military said on Monday that it had destroyed 50 Russian ammunition depots using the US-supplied high mobility artillery rocket systems (Himars).
The systems, delivered late last month, have turned the war in Ukraine’s favour by dismantling Russia’s logistics and slowing down its offensive, say Ukrainian authorities.
“This cuts [Russian] logistical chains and takes away their ability to conduct active fighting and hit our armed forces with heavy shelling,” Ukraine’s minister of defence, Oleksii Reznikov, said.
Talking to Ukraine’s United News broadcast, Reznikov said that the country’s western partners had confirmed Ukrainian forces’ destruction of 50 Russian ammunition depots as well as a number of other Russian command posts via satellites.
Meanwhile, Russia’s defence ministry said on Monday that its forces destroyed a Himar missile storage unit in Ukraine’s western Khmelnytskyi region. Russia said on Saturday it had destroyed four Himar systems so far this month.
Ukraine has denied both claims. The US general Mark Milley has previously denied the claim Russia had destroyed a Himar.
Ukraine is estimated to have 12 Himar systems. Reznikov has called for 50 Himars, as well as the similar M270 rocket systems, to contain Russia along what he described as a 1,500-mile frontline, which includes the Ukraine-Belarus border. Reznikov said that with 100 Himars Ukraine could launch an effective counteroffensive.
During a visit to Kyiv, the US legislator Adam Smith told Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty the US was aiming to provide Ukraine with 25 to 30 Himars in total, stating that it is not a fact that they have 50 Himars in their arsenal.
The US recently announced it would send another four, bringing the total to 16.
Unlike the systems Ukraine was previously using, the US-designed rocket launchers shoot GPS-guided missiles that have a deviation of about 1-3 metres and can penetrate 45 miles behind enemy lines – minimising civilian casualties and maximising Ukraine’s potential to hit enemy targets.
Since June, Ukraine’s armed forces have posted more than a dozen videos online that appear to show the destruction of warehouses storing explosive materials inside occupied Ukraine. These attacks, say Ukrainian authorities, are thanks to the Himars.
Comparative maps of Russian artillery strikes in the Donbas published by the Washington-based thinktank Institute for the Study of War shows that the number fell between early and mid-July as a result of the Himars.
Before their full effect started to be felt, Ukrainian forces had been forced to retreat from the town of Lysychansk, the last remaining Ukrainian stronghold in the eastern Luhansk region.
Russia then continued with its attack on the Donbas – encompassing the Luhansk and Donetsk regions – but it has seen little gains since.
Ukraine says that despite throwing masses of men and artillery towards its objective, Russia has been stymied by the Himar factor. The UK Ministry of Defence has described fighting in the Donbas and Ukraine’s southern Kherson regions as “inconclusive”.
Additional reporting by Jason Burke
