KYIV, Ukraine –
Six more ships carrying agricultural cargo held up by Ukraine’s war were allowed to leave the country’s Black Sea coast on Sunday as analysts warned that Russia was moving troops and equipment toward southern port cities to repel a Ukrainian counteroffensive.
Ukraine and Russia also accused each other of shelling Europe’s largest nuclear power plant.
The laden ships have been cleared to depart from Chernomorsk and Odessa, according to the Joint Coordination Center, which is monitoring an international agreement designed to export about 20 million tons of grain from Ukraine to feed millions of starving people in Africa, the Middle East and parts of Asia.
Ukraine, Russia, Turkey and the United Nations signed agreements last month to create a 111-nautical-mile maritime corridor that will allow cargo ships to travel safely from ports blocked by the Russian military and through waters mined by the Ukrainian military. Implementation of the deal, which has been in place for four months, has been slow since the first ship boarded on August 1.
Four of the carriers allowed to leave Ukraine on Sunday were carrying more than 219,000 tons of corn. The fifth was carrying more than 6,600 tons of sunflower oil, and the sixth was carrying 11,000 tons of soybeans, the Joint Coordination Center said.
Three other cargo ships that left on Friday passed their inspections and were cleared on Sunday to pass through Turkey’s Bosphorus Strait en route to their final destination, the Center said.
However, the ship, which left Ukraine last Monday with much fanfare as the first in the grain export deal, had its scheduled arrival in Lebanon on Sunday, according to the Lebanese cabinet minister and the Ukrainian embassy. The reason for the delay was not immediately clear.
Ukrainian officials were initially skeptical of the grain export deal, citing suspicions that Moscow would try to use the shipping to build up troops at sea or launch long-range missiles from the Black Sea, as it has done repeatedly in time of war.
The agreements call for ships to leave Ukraine under military escort and undergo inspections to ensure they are only carrying grain, fertilizer or food and not any other goods. Arriving cargo ships are screened to ensure they are not carrying weapons.
In an analysis over the weekend, Britain’s Ministry of Defense said the Russian invasion, which began on February 24, “is about to enter a new phase” in which fighting will shift to an approximately 350-kilometer (217-mile) front line stretching from near the city of Zaporozhye to Russian-occupied Kherson.
This area includes the Zaporozhye nuclear power plant, which was shelled late Saturday. Each side blamed the other for the attack.
Ukraine’s nuclear power plant operator Energoatom said Russian shelling damaged three radiation monitors around the spent nuclear fuel storage facility and that one worker was injured. Russian news agencies, citing the separatist-run administration of the plant, said Ukrainian forces had fired those shells.
Russian forces have occupied the power plant for months. Russian soldiers there took shelter in bunkers before Saturday’s attack, according to Energoatom.
Rafael Grossi, director general of the International Atomic Energy Agency, recently warned that the way the plant is being run and the battles that are taking place around it pose serious threats to health and the environment.
In the last four months of the war, Russia has focused on capturing the Donbass region in eastern Ukraine, where pro-Moscow separatists have controlled parts of the territory as self-proclaimed republics for eight years. Russian forces have made gradual advances in the region while launching rocket and missile attacks to restrict the movement of Ukrainian fighters elsewhere.
The Russians “continue to build up large amounts of military equipment” in a city across the Dnieper River from Russian-controlled Kherson, according to the Institute for the Study of War, a Washington think tank. Citing local Ukrainian officials, it said the preparations appeared to be aimed at protecting logistics routes into the city and establishing defensive positions on the left bank of the river.
Kherson fell under Russian control at the start of the war, and Ukrainian authorities vowed to take it back. It is only 227 kilometers (141 miles) from Odesa, home to Ukraine’s largest port, so the conflict escalating there could have implications for the international grain trade.
The city of Nikolaev, a shipbuilding center that Russian forces bombard daily, is even closer to Odessa. Nikolaev Oblast Governor Vitaly Kim said an industrial facility on the outskirts of the regional capital was shelled early Sunday.
Over the past 24 hours, five civilians have been killed by Russian and separatist shelling of towns in the Donetsk region, the part of Donbass that is still under Ukrainian control, regional governor Sergei Haydai said.
He and representatives of the Ukrainian government have repeatedly called on civilians to evacuate.
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Andrew Wilkes contributed reporting from Istanbul.
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