received authorization Sunday to leave the country's Black Sea coast as analysts warned that Russia was moving troops and equipment in the direction of the southern port cities to stave off a Ukrainian counteroffensive.
The Glory bulk carrier makes its way from the port in Odesa, Ukraine, Sunday, Aug. 7, 2022. According to Ukraine's Ministry of Infrastructure, the ship under the Marshall Islands' flag is carrying 66 thousand tons of Ukrainian corn.Four of the carriers cleared Sunday to leave Ukraine were transporting more than 219,000 tons of corn. The fifth was carrying more than 6,600 tons of sunflower oil and the sixth 11,000 tons of soya, the Joint Coordination Center said.
Ukrainian officials were initially skeptical of a grain export deal, citing suspicions that Moscow would try to exploit shipping activity to mass troops offshore or send long-range missiles from the Black Sea, as it has done multiple times during the war. That area includes the Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Station which came under fire late Saturday. Each side accused the other of the attack.
Rafael Grossi, director general of the International Atomic Energy Agency, recently warned that the way the plant was being run and the fighting going on around it posed grave health and environmental threats.