• Українською
  • The traffic of 218 vessels participating in the Black Sea Grain Initiative is actually blocked – Ministry of Infrastructure of Ukraine
    Ministry of Infrastructure of Ukraine, posted 30 October 2022 17:30

    Due to the fact that as of October 30, the Ukrainian side does not have permission from the Joint Coordination Centre to pass through the safe corridor and conduct inspections, 218 vessels are actually blocked in their current positions.
    In particular: 
    • 95 loaded vessels that have already left Ukrainian ports and are waiting inspection for shipment to the final consumer; 
    • 101 vessels are waiting for inspection at the entrance to Ukrainian ports; 
    • 22 loaded vessels are waiting to leave Ukrainian ports.  
    We emphasize that the implementation of the "Initiative on the safe transportation of grain and agricultural products through Ukrainian ports" is of an exclusively humanitarian nature and Ukraine, as a party to the Initiative, has not violated any of its points. 

    The Ukrainian side did not stop the movement of goods through the "grain corridor", even despite russian military attacks on the port and energy infrastructure. Also, 15 cases of russian UAVs and aircraft approaching the prohibited distance to civilian vessels participating in the Initiative were recorded.  

    At the same time, it should be noted that the actual blockade of the "grain corridor" by the russian federation began back in September. This was made by artificial delay and reduction of the number of inspections, which led to the creation of a queue of 176 vessels with 2.1 million agricultural products on board. In this manner, it becomes obvious that russia's intention is to provoke mass famine in the needy lands of Africa and Asia, and also to create a hostile food shortage in the whole world. 

    We would like to emphasize that since the first ship left, we managed to export more than 9 million tons of food, of which more than 5 million tons – to the countries of Africa and Asia. 190,000 tons of Ukrainian wheat were sent to countries on the verge of starvation within the World Food Program under the auspices of the UN.  

    We emphasize that Ukraine remains a reliable ally for the civilized world and is ready to continue gathering and shipping agricultural products to ensure global food security.