Cargo ship exits Ukraine port despite threat from Russian navy

KYIV, Ukraine: Kyiv said a civilian cargo vessel had exited its southern port of Odesa on Wednesday despite warnings from Russia that its navy could target ships using Ukraine´s Black Sea export hubs.

The announcement, which raises the spectre of a standoff with Russian warships, came hours after Ukraine said it had liberated a village as part of a grinding push against Moscow´s forces along the southern front.

Russia issued its maritime threat after scuppering a key deal last month brokered by the UN and Turkiye, which guaranteed safe passage for grain shipments from three Ukrainian ports.

Ukraine´s Infrastructure Minister Oleksandr Kubrakov said the Hong Kong-flagged Joseph Schulte left Wednesday morning from the port of Odesa -- one of three that participated in the now-scrapped grain export deal.

“The first vessel is moving along the temporary corridors established for civilian vessels to and from Black Sea ports,” he said.

Ukraine´s President Volodymyr Zelensky welcomed the development. “Ukraine has just made an important step toward restoring the freedom of navigation in the Black Sea,” he said on social media.

The Joseph Schulte was en route to Turkiye, a maritime tracking website showed as of 1820 GMT. Since Russia´s exit from the accord in July, it has stepped up attacks on Ukraine´s Black Sea port infrastructure and facilities Kyiv uses to export grain through the Danube river.

The governor of the Odesa region said on Wednesday that Russian attack drones had damaged grain facilities at a river port near the Romanian border. The air force meanwhile said it had downed 13 Russian drones over Odesa and the neighbouring Mykolaiv region.

The incident sparked outrage in EU-member Romania -- now a key hub for Ukrainian grain exports abroad since the collapse of the exports deal. “I strongly condemn the continued (Russian) attacks on innocent people, civilian infrastructure, including grain silos in the ports of Reni and Izmail,” Foreign Minister Luminita Odobescu said.