Aug 6 (Reuters) – Ukraine will provide assistance to farmers hit by Russian attacks on shipping and port facilities, President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said on Thursday.
Zelenskiy, speaking in his nightly video address, said the measures had been elaborated at a government meeting and would focus on farmers “who are now in a difficult situation because of Russian strikes on our ports and the maritime corridor”.
He said the measures, including subsidised credits and other assistance with financing, would “begin to be implemented in the coming days”.
Russia, the world’s largest wheat exporter, and Ukraine, also a major agricultural exporter, have struck each other’s agricultural export facilities and commercial vessels in the Black Sea area in recent weeks.
The governor of Ukraine’s Odesa Region, Oleh Kiper, said on Thursday that a Russian attack had damaged a foreign-flagged ship loaded with wheat in Ukraine’s Black Sea area, killing one crew member and causing a fire. Ukraine’s seaports authority identified the ship as sailing under the flag of Guinea-Bissau.
Ukraine had established a Black Sea corridor for safe passage of shipping that moves along the coast towards Romania, but ships have recently come under attack in the area.
Ukrainian Foreign Minister Andrii Sybiha said Russian attacks in 2022, in the months after the invasion of Ukraine, had caused steep increases in the global food price index, “leading to acute food insecurity for millions of families”.
“Russia is trying to achieve the same result now by attacking civilian vessels in Ukrainian ports and along Ukraine’s sea corridor,” Sybiha wrote on X. “The consequences for the world could be just as severe as they were in 2022.”
Ukrainian Agriculture Minister Taras Vysotskyi told Reuters this week that alternative grain export routes would reach required capacity at the end of August at the earliest. They would cover only half of volumes handled by Black Sea ports disrupted by Russian attacks, he said.
For its part, Russia’s main grain lobby group warned last month that drone strikes on Russian ships and ports could shut down grain exports via the Black Sea in the near future, pushing up prices and causing hunger in Africa and the Middle East.
(Reporting by Ron Popeski; Editing by Sanjeev Miglani and Stephen Coates)
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