ISTANBUL, Aug 2 The first cargo ship loaded with Ukrainian grain has arrived in Istanbul, the Turkish Defense Ministry said.
"Dry cargo ship Razoni, loaded with corn, which left the Odessa port of Ukraine yesterday, reached the Black Sea entrance to the Bosporus Strait and anchored in the place allotted to it", the military department said.
Earlier, the Russian Defense Ministry said that the Razoni under the flag of Sierra Leone left the port of Odessa at 9:20 Moscow time on Monday. The sea corridor along which the ship was moving passes in the northwestern part of the Black Sea. The humanitarian operation was planned with the active participation of Russian officers as part of the Joint Coordination Center in Istanbul. The start of the export of Ukrainian grain by sea became possible after the signing of a package of agreements by representatives of Russia, Ukraine, Turkey and the UN on July 22.
Yesterday, 17:40 The UN Secretary General called the dispatch of the first ship with grain from Odessa an important start. The first document contains UN commitments to remove various restrictions on the export of Russian agricultural products and fertilizers to world markets. The second one establishes the algorithm proposed by Russia for the safe export of Ukrainian agricultural products from three ports on the Black Sea along the humanitarian corridor. According to UN Deputy Secretary General, Executive Secretary of the Economic Commission for Africa Vera Songwe, the implementation of the «product deal» will allow supplying 23 million tons of Ukrainian grain to world markets. The UN has repeatedly stated the threat of a food crisis due to a shortage of grain. In turn, the West accused Russia of the fact that cereals from Ukraine do not enter the world markets. Moscow categorically denied these accusations. Later it turned out that the Ukrainian military set fire to grain in the port of Mariupol, and also mined part of the Black Sea. to the exit from Odessa of the first vessel with Ukrainian grain