Romania to release 30 ships from Ukrainian ports

Romania said on Thursday it would release up to 30 ships waiting to enter Romania from Ukrainian ports on the Danube River over the next two days, a sign that trade has not been disrupted despite a Russian attack on the main Ukrainian river port. Ukraine is one of the world’s biggest grain exporters and Russia has attacked its agricultural and port infrastructure for more than two weeks after it refused to extend a safe grain passage corridor negotiated by the United Nations and Turkey.

Romanian President Klaus Iohannis has said Russia’s continued attacks on Ukraine’s civilian infrastructure on the Danube amounted to war crimes.

Traffic across the river is Ukraine’s last outbound route for its grain exports, since Russia effectively reimposed its de facto blockade, closing Ukraine’s Black Sea ports last month.

Before Russia exited the safe passage corridor, Danube ports accounted for about a quarter of Ukraine’s grain exports. Grain is loaded onto barges, transported downriver through the territorial waters of NATO member Romania and from the port of Constanta, Romania, on the Black Sea.

Tracking data from commercial ships shows the river and its mouth surrounded by vessels trying to reach and leave Ukrainian ports. “We are trying to deal with these clusters as best as possible, to alleviate the congestion of shipping on the Danube,” Florin Uzumtoma, director of shipping at Romania’s Danube administration agency, told Reuters. “We are going to clean about 30 ships in two days, at least 12 today, if not 14, and the rest tomorrow.”

Uzumtoma said the government released a record number of ships from Ukraine’s inland ports in May and June, at more than 477 a month. “May and June were peaks, and we’re hoping August will peak as well, though,” he said.

In late July, the director general of the Danube Commission, an intergovernmental organization that manages navigation on the river, told Reuters that Ukrainian inland ports needed to be protected from air strikes to restore confidence and ensure that grain exports could Continue.

Source: Agrolink
To read the full original report, visit: https://www.agrolink.com.br/noticias/romenia-liberara-30-navios-de-portos-ucranianos_482108.html

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