UN ship with wheat for Ethiopia leaves Ukraine
KYIV: The third vessel charted by the United Nations World Food Programme (WFP), let Ukraine’s Chornomorsk Black Sea port with around 30,000 tonnes of wheat on board, Ukraine’s infrastructure ministry said on Saturday.
“The vessel is headed for Ethiopia. According to UN estimates, Ethiopia is on the verge of a food crisis,” the ministry said in a statement.
It said that in partnership with the WFP, three ships loaded with more than 90,000 tonnes of wheat are on their way to Ethiopia and Yemen.
“We plan to export another 190,000 tonnes, which are currently being purchased by UN partners,” the ministry said, adding that besides the IKARIA ANGEL, another nine vessels have let Ukrainian ports on Saturday.
The country’s grain exports have slumped since the start of the war because its Black Sea ports - a key route for shipments - were closed off, driving up global food prices and prompting fears of shortages in Africa and the Middle East.
Three Black Sea ports were unblocked at the end of July under a deal between Moscow and Kyiv, brokered by the United Nations and Turkey.
Meanwhile, US President Joe Biden has warned his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin against using chemical or tactical nuclear weapons in the wake of serious losses in his war in Ukraine.
“Don’t. Don’t. Don’t,” Biden said, in an excerpt from an interview with CBS’ “60 Minutes” aired on Friday evening.
Biden was responding to an interviewer’s question about the possibility of Putin, whose army is incurring heavy losses in the Ukraine counteroffensive this month, resorting to chemical or tactical nuclear weapons.
“You would change the face of war unlike anything since World War II,” Biden said.
“They will become more of a pariah in the world, more than they have ever been,” the US leader added.
Ukraine’s Prime Minister Denys Shmyhal thanked the United States on Saturday for its support ater Ukraine received a further $1.5 billion in international financial assistance.
“The state budget of Ukraine received a grant of $1.5 billion. This is the last tranche of $4.5 billion aid from the United States from @ Worldbank Trust Fund,” Shmyhal tweeted.
Russia’s defence ministry said on Saturday that its forces had launched strikes on Ukrainian positions in several parts of Ukraine, and accused Kyiv of carrying out shelling near the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant.
Russian forces conducted their strikes in the Kherson, Mykolaiv, Kharkiv and Donetsk regions, according to the ministry, which added that Ukrainian forces had carried out an unsuccessful offensive near Pravdyne in Kherson.
IZIUM: The European Union (EU) presidency on Saturday called for the establishment of an international tribunal for war crimes ater new mass graves were found in Ukraine.
“In the 21st century, such atacks against the civilian population are unthinkable and abhorrent,” said Jan Lipavsky, foreign minister of the Czech Republic which holds the European Union’s rotating presidency.
“We must not overlook it. We stand for the punishment of all war criminals,” he added in a message on Twiter.
“I call for the speedy establishment of a special international tribunal that will prosecute the crime of aggression.”
The appeal follows the discovery by Ukrainian authorities of around 450 graves outside the formerly Russian-occupied city of Izyum with most of the exhumed bodies showing signs of torture.
“Among the bodies that were exhumed today, 99 per cent showed signs of violent death,” Oleg Synegubov, head of Kharkiv regional administration, said on social media.
“There are several bodies with their hands tied behind their backs, and one person is buried with a rope around his neck,” he added.
“Russia leaves only death and suffering. Murderers. Torturers,” said Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelensky.
Some of the remains exhumed included children and people who were likely tortured before dying, he added.
US Secretary of State Antony Blinken on
Friday said that the graves likely provided more evidence that Russia is commiting war crimes in its pro-western neighbour, and French President Emmanuel Macron said what happened in Izyum were atrocities.
“I condemn in the strongest terms the atrocities commited in Izyum, Ukraine, under Russian occupation,” Macron tweeted.
The Ukrainian parliament’s human rights commissioner, Dmytro Lubinets, said there were “probably more than 1,000 Ukrainian citizens tortured and killed in the liberated territories of the Kharkiv region.”
Ukraine national police chief Igor Klymenko said they had found multiple torture rooms in the town of Balakliya and elsewhere in Kharkiv since the Russians were driven out.
The United Nations in Geneva has said it hopes to send a team to determine the circumstances of the deaths.