Two new ships loaded with grain have left Ukraine, including one loaded with grain, the first since Ukraine’s grain exports resumed earlier this month under an agreement signed on July 22 in Istanbul, the Turkish Defense Ministry announced.

A total of 14 ships loaded with grain have left Ukraine’s southern coast in the past two weeks, under an agreement signed by Russia and Ukraine under the auspices of the United Nations and Turkey and which provides safe sea corridors from three of the region’s main ports. Odessa administrative region.

Sormovsky, flying the Belizean flag, left the port of Chernomorsk with a cargo of 3,050 tons of wheat for Turkey’s Tekirdag province, which borders the Sea of ​​Marmara.Grain terminal in the port of Odessa. [Stringer – Reuters]

This was the first Ukrainian grain export for more than five months, as the launch of Russia’s aggression on February 24 quickly brought the Black Sea and Sea of ​​Azov ports to a halt, in southern Ukraine.

Before the start of the war, Ukraine and Russia together accounted for about a third of the world’s wheat exports and the United Nations has repeatedly warned in recent months about the risk of a worsening of the world food crisis after the conflict, in particular because of Russia’s blockade of Ukrainian ports on the Black Sea.

Another Ukrainian ship, the Star Laura, flying the Marshall Islands flag, left the port of Pivdenny, in the city of Yuzhni, with 60,000 tonnes of corn on board bound for Iran, the official said.

To date, most ships leaving Ukraine under the Istanbul agreement are loaded with feed grains or intended for use in biofuel compositions.