Cargo ship exits Ukraine port despite threat from Russia

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 on 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. The Joseph Schulte was en route to Turkiye, a maritime tracking website showed as of 5:20pm local time.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 outcry 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.The possibility of a Russian attack on cargo ships in the Black Sea increased after Moscow said it fired warning shots from a warship at a cargo vessel heading towards Izmail last week.The Joseph Schulte left Odesa hours after Kyiv announced the capture of Urozhaine, a small village in the industrial east."Our defenders are entrenched at the outskirts. The offensive continues,” Deputy Defence Minister Ganna Malyar said on social media.