MOSCOW : Ukraine Infrastructure Ministry said that 12 vessels had departed from Ukrainian ports on Monday as part of the Black Sea Grain deal Initiative.
On Saturday, the Russian Defense Ministry said that Moscow was suspending its participation in the grain deal following Ukraine drone attack on vessels of the Russian Black Sea Fleet in the bay of Sevastopol in Crimea.
“12 vessels with 354.200 tonnes of agricultural products for Africa, Asia and Europe left the ports of Odesa, Chornomorsk and Yuzhne today,” the ministry said in a statement on its social media.
Earlier in the day, the United Nations, Turkey and Ukraine agreed on the traffic route for 16 vessels in the Black Sea on October 31 (12 outbound and 4 inbound) under the “grain deal,” the Istanbul-based Joint Coordination Center (JCC) said.
A total of nine vessels transited the maritime humanitarian corridor under the grain deal on Saturday, the JCC added. The UN delegation has informed Moscow on the movements, the JCC noted.
On July 22, Russia, Ukraine, and Turkey signed an UN-brokered initiative to provide a humanitarian grain deal by maritime corridor for ships with food and fertilizer exports from Ukrainian Black Sea ports.
However, Russian President Vladimir Putin has repeatedly said that most of the ships carrying Ukrainian grain did not make it to the world’s poorest countries and ended up in Europe. Moscow has also maintained that the part of the deal concerning Russian food products was not working.
