The Hong Kong-flagged Joseph Schulte left Odesa on Wednesday morning, news outlets reported.
The ship’s departure has been confirmed by Ukraine’s Infrastructure Minister Oleksandr Kubrakov, according to Britain’s The Guardian newspaper.
The announcement marks the first time a civilian cargo vessel has left a Ukrainian port since Russia last month quit the United Nations-backed Black Sea Grain Initiative, designed to safeguard the export of Ukrainian grain through the Black Sea, The Guardian reported.
Russia subsequently launched a series of missile and drone strikes on Ukraine’s Black Sea port of Odesa and the region, destroying ports, granaries, residential buildings and other facilities, the Euromaidan Press website said.
Moscow has also warned its warships could target ships using Black Sea export hubs, The Guardian reported on Thursday.
Through these measures, Russia seems intent on imposing a de-facto blockade of the Black Sea, experts have said.
On August 10, Ukraine launched a “humanitarian corridor” to allow cargo ships stuck in its ports of Chornomorsk, Odesa and Pivdenny since Russia’s 2022 invasion to sail into the Black Sea.
The US State Department on Wednesday condemned “Russia’s continued attacks on Ukrainian grain infrastructure” and urged Moscow “to immediately return to the Black Sea Grain Initiative.”
Ukrainian counteroffensive successful on southeastern front: officials
The Ukrainian army on Thursday claimed success in its counteroffensive against Russia on the southeastern front, the Reuters news agency reported.
The statement came a day after Ukraine liberated the settlement of Urzhaine on the edge of the eastern Donetsk region.
Ukrainian military spokesman Andriy Kovaliov told national television on Thursday that Ukrainian troops "had success in the direction south of Urozhaine,” without giving further details, as cited by Reuters.
Meanwhile, the Institute for the Study of War, a US think tank, reported that Ukraine on Wednesday continued counteroffensive operations on at least three sectors of the front.
The ISW said Ukraine had advanced in the direction of the southern port of Berdyansk, along the border between the Donetsk region and the southeastern Zaporizhzhia province, including retaking the village of Urozhaine; and in the direction of another southern port Melitopol, in the western part of Zaporizhzhia; as well as continuing counteroffensive operations around the eastern city of Bakhmut.
Ukraine’s summer counteroffensive against the Russian invasion has faced the challenge of progressing through vast Russian minefields and entrenched Russian defensive lines without powerful air support, Reuters reported, citing officials in Kyiv.
Russia currently controls about a fifth of Ukraine’s territory, including the Crimea peninsula, most of the eastern Luhansk region and vast swathes of Donetsk in the east, Zaporizhzhia in the southeast and Kherson in the south, according to Reuters.
Russia invaded Ukraine on February 24, 2022, launching the largest military campaign in Europe since World War II.
Thursday is day 540 of Russia’s war on Ukraine.
(pm/gs)
Source: PAP, The Guardian, state.gov, Reuters, ISW
