About 17 million tons of agricultural products have been exported under the Black Sea Grain Initiative, which established a humanitarian maritime corridor to allow ships to export grain and other foodstuffs from Ukraine.
The Ukrainian Ministry for Development of Communities, Territories, and Infrastructure announced this in a statement, the CFTS portal reports.
Five ships exported 158,500 tons of Ukrainian agricultural products from the ports of Greater Odesa in three days.
They include the True Harmony bulk carrier (which is transporting 26,000 tons of agricultural products to Egypt) and the Leo 1 bulk carrier (49,500 tons of wheat to Sri Lanka).
According to the statement, 98 ships are waiting for inspection in the Bosporus (21 loaded with agricultural products and 77 heading to Ukrainian seaports to be loaded).
"Most of these vessels have been waiting in the Bosporus since last year due to deliberate obstruction of inspections by the Russians. This is reducing the volume of export of Ukrainian agricultural products to countries that need them and inflicting millions [of dollars] in losses on cargo owners," the ministry said in the statement.
