Grain shipments from Ukraine set to start despite port attack

KYIV • Millions of tonnes of grain held hostage by war in the ports of Ukraine appear to be inching closer to a world that desperately needs food.

Three days after striking a deal with Russia to liberate the grain, Ukrainian labourers are laying the groundwork for shipments at the port of Odesa and others to markets overseas, Ukrainian officials say. And an attack by Russia on a military target at the Odesa port does not appear to have slowed the efforts.

At first, Russia denied having anything to do with the attack, according to Turkey, which helped to broker the deal. Then, on Sunday, the Kremlin claimed it was hitting a military target.

"Kalibr missiles destroyed Odesa port's military infrastructure, sending a Ukrainian military boat to the Kyiv regime's favourite address in a precision strike," Russian Foreign Ministry spokesman Maria Zakharova said on Telegram.

Russia's Defence Ministry spokesman, Lieutenant-General Igor Konashenkov, said at a daily briefing that a docked Ukrainian warship and a warehouse holding Harpoon anti-ship missiles supplied by the United States were destroyed, The Associated Press reported.

Four Russian long-range missiles were fired and Ukrainian air defences shot down two of them, Ukraine's military said.

Nevertheless, over the weekend, Ukrainian officials said they were getting the gear back in motion for the shipment of grains.

"We continue technical preparations to launch the export of agricultural products from our ports," Ukraine's Infrastructure Minister, Mr Oleksandr Kubrakov, said on Facebook.

Ukrainian seaport officials said they were getting the ports of Odesa, Chornomorsk and Pivdennyi ready for shipping to resume.

"We inform you that the arrival and departure of ships to the specified seaports will be carried out by forming a caravan, which will be accompanied by the lead ship," the Ukrainian Seaports Authority said in a statement.

Under the agreement, Ukrainian captains will steer vessels carrying grain out of port, and a joint command centre with officials from Ukraine, Russia, Turkey and the United Nations will be set up in Istanbul to monitor the flotillas' movements.

The ships will head into Turkish waters to be inspected by officials, then deliver their cargo around the world, returning for another inspection before heading back to Ukraine to satisfy a Russian demand that returning ships not carry weapons to Ukraine.

On Sunday, Russia sent its Foreign Minister, Mr Sergey Lavrov, on a four-day trip to Africa to make Russia's case that the West is to blame for the shortages, not Russia.

He said poorer countries were being victimised by wealthier ones.

"We know that the African colleagues do not approve of the undisguised attempts of the US and their European satellites to gain the upper hand, and to impose a unipolar world order to the international community," Mr Lavrov wrote in an article published in newspapers in the four countries he was visiting: Egypt, Ethiopia, Uganda and the Democratic Republic of the Congo.

Meanwhile, in continued fighting, Russian forces shelled the town of Chuhuyiv in the north-eastern Kharkiv region overnight on Sunday, hitting a culture centre and trapping three people under rubble, a regional police chief said. A fourth person, a woman, was wounded.

Russia also continued shelling along the entire front line in the eastern Donetsk region, especially in the area of Bakhmut, damaging at least five houses and wounding one person there, Ukrainian authorities said. Other cities under renewed Russian fire include Avdiivka and Kramatorsk.

Separately, Ukraine's military said its forces had moved within range of targets in the Black Sea region of Kherson, where Kyiv is mounting a counter-offensive.

NYTIMES, REUTERS