Speaking in an interview with Kanal 7 TV station, Ibrahim Kalin said that the joint coordination center in Istanbul will probably complete the final work on the export routes very soon. An agreement signed under the auspices of the UN and Turkey on July 22 aims to allow the safe passage of ships carrying grain from three ports in southern Ukraine. Russia and Ukraine are major global suppliers of wheat, and the UN-brokered deal they signed in Istanbul last week aims both to ease the food crisis and to lower global grain prices that have risen since the Russian invasion. WATCHES | Ukraine to continue grain exports despite risks:
Ukraine will continue grain exports despite Moscow’s attack on Odessa port
Ukraine is set to resume grain exports from its Black Sea ports this week following a UN-brokered deal with Russia last Friday. This is despite the fact that two Russian missiles hit the port of Odessa less than 24 hours after the agreement was finalized for the safe passage of grain shipments. Ukraine’s president said on Sunday that the country’s harvest could be half the usual amount this year because of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. “Ukraine’s harvest this year is threatened to double,” President Volodymyr Zelenskyy tweeted in English, suggesting half the usual amount. “Our main goal is to prevent the global food crisis caused by the Russian invasion. Grains find a way to be delivered alternatively,” he added. Ukraine, a key global grain supplier, has struggled to get its product to buyers because of Russia’s naval blockade of Ukraine’s Black Sea ports, fueling global prices for grain, cooking oil, fuel and fertilizer.
Drone explosion
Elsewhere, a senior official in Russian-annexed Crimea accused Ukraine of carrying out a drone strike ahead of planned celebrations to mark Russia’s Navy Day, injuring six people and forcing the cancellation of the celebrations. “An unknown object flew into the yard of the fleet headquarters,” Mikhail Razvozayev, governor of Sevastopol, home of Russia’s Black Sea Fleet, wrote on the Telegram messaging app. Ukraine’s defense ministry did not immediately respond to a request for comment. The drone-borne explosive device was reported to have been detonated at the headquarters of the Russian Black Sea Fleet on the peninsula that Russia annexed from Ukraine in 2014. The Black Sea Fleet press service said the drone appeared to be improvised. In this June 29 photo, a local resident collects photos of his family left under the rubble after Russian bombing in Mykolaiv, Ukraine. (George Ivanchenko/The Associated Press) Fighting continued in other parts of Ukraine. Mykolayiv port mayor Vitaly Kim said one person was killed by Russian shelling that damaged a hotel and school buildings.
Bombing kills owner of leading Ukrainian agricultural company
The founder and owner of one of the largest Ukrainian agricultural companies Nibulon, Oleksiy Vadatursky, and his wife were killed in a Russian strike in the Mykolaiv region, Kim said on Sunday. The governor told Telegram that the couple was killed in their home when the city was shelled Sunday night and morning. Nibulon, which is headquartered in Mykolaiv, specializes in the production and export of wheat, barley and corn and has its own fleet and shipyard. In the Sumy region of northern Ukraine, near the Russian border, shelling killed one person, the regional administration said. Three people were killed in attacks last day in the Donetsk region, which is partially under the control of Russian separatist forces, Governor Pavlo Kirilenko said.
