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FOUR MORE SHIPS loaded with grain set off from Ukrainian ports today, as Moscow and Kyiv blamed each other for a new strike at a Russian-occupied nuclear plant.
“The second convoy of Ukrainian supplies has just left… three from Chornomorsk and one from Odessa,” Kyiv’s infrastructure ministry wrote on Telegram.
It said the Mustafa Necati, the Star Helena, the Glory and the Riva Wind were carrying “around 170,000 tonnes of agriculture-related merchandise”.
Meanwhile, Moscow and Kyiv traded accusations over who bombed the Zaporizhzhia nuclear site in southern Ukraine, Europe’s largest atomic power complex which has been under Russian control since the early days of the 24 February.
The recent fighting at the plant prompted UN’s nuclear watchdog, the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) to warn of “the very real risk of a nuclear disaster”.
Earlier today, Russia’s occupying authorities in the town of Enerhodar where the plant is located said the Ukrainian army overnight “carried out a strike with a cluster bomb fired from an Uragan multiple rocket launcher”.
The projectiles fell “within 400 metres of a working reactor”, Russia’s state news agency TASS reported.
The strike damaged some administrative buildings and fell in a “zone storing used nuclear fuel”.
However Ukraine’s state nuclear energy company Enerhoatom that operates the plant said the “Russian occupiers once again fired rockets at the site of the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant and the town of Enerhodar”.
“One… employee was hospitalised with shrapnel wounds caused by the explosion,” it said in a statement.
AFP was not able to confirm the allegations from an independent source.
Yesterday, Enerhoatom had already said parts of the facility had been “seriously damaged” by military strikes the previous day and one of its reactors forced to shut down.
The prospect of the giant complex being seriously damaged in the fighting has set off alarm.
“Any military firepower directed at or from the facility would amount to playing with fire, with potentially catastrophic consequences,” IAEA Rafael Grossi said yesterday.
‘Sign of hope’
The renewed shipments of Ukrainian grain to help ease global food shortages and bring down prices nevertheless offer a small glimmer of hope as the war enters its sixth month.
Ukraine, one of the world’s largest grain exporters, had been forced to halt almost all deliveries in the wake of Russia’s invasion, sending global food prices soaring and making imports prohibitively expensive for some of the world’s poorest nations.
In Rome on Sunday, Pope Francis welcomed the resumption of grain exports as “a sign of hope” that showed dialogue was possible to end the war.
“I sincerely hope that, following this path, we can put an end to the fighting and arrive at a just and lasting peace.”
A bulk carrier had arrived in Chornomorsk yesterday to be loaded with grain for the first time since Moscow’s invasion.
Last Monday, the Sierra Leone-flagged vessel, Razoni, set sail from the Ukrainian port of Odessa carrying 26,000 tonnes of corn in the first departure under the deal that was brokered with the help of Turkey.
Then on Friday, Kyiv said another three ships loaded with grain had also set off for Turkey and markets in Ireland and Britain with a further 13 waiting to depart.
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I’m not allowed to comment on the Israeli article.
Does Israel sponsor the Journal? (genuine question)
@Michael Flanagan: Yes they do. Remember Kevin Myers being sacked from the IT for an innocuous comment in an Israel related article.
I didn’t like him as a journalist but felt very sorry for the treatment he got from the cowardly IT mgmt.
@Michael Flanagan: they probably receive too many antisemitic comments.
@Daniel O’Neill: yes, and they also clearly mistake genuine disgust at Israel’s behavior with anti semitism.
Israel use that card all the time.
And again commenting on Gaza death toll is closed!
The 33000 ton ship of grain coming to Ireland is nothing to do with World hunger, it about merchants putting their foot on farmers throats and controlling the grain market. This after the same merchants that got 150-200% profits on last years grain and fertliser they pre bought at 250-300€ sold for up to 1400€. Now they wana steel the grain. Don’t let them crooks fool you into thinking they’re taking this grain to help Ukraine…. They’re lining their own pockets. It should be going to the countries that need it. It coming in here will make no differance on food prices in the supermarkets.
@Sean Mc Cabe: this is actually correct, Ireland imports so much grain for animal feed ,it would actually feed a third world country ,.
@Dennison’s Waterford: B@stard cows Ted
@Dennison’s Waterford: So, you think animals shouldn’t eat do you? You do realise you’re just a different species of animal or maybe you think you’re above all other species? You aren’t!
@Digital Marketing Growth with Jarvis.ai-Free Trial:
Fine, that was the cigarette break response.
The Russians are threatening the world with a nuclear disaster at Zaporizhzhia NPP for at least 3 reasons, and it was the Russians who shelled a part of the facility Saturday night.
1) To freak out the West and motivate them to push Zelensky for a negotiated peace which would mean surrendering all or most occupied territory.
2) To keep Germany cautious about pursuing nuclear energy, Putin wants them back buying oil and gas.
3) The Russian ammo dumps are getting destroyed by HIMARS, so they are resorting to storing ammunition at the Zaporizhzhia NPP knowing the Ukrainians will not strike them with GMLRS.
The “Ghost of Kiev” was ultimately debunked by the Ukrainian leadership, it did no harm anyway just a bit of motivation when it was needed.
There are mass graves in occupied Mariupol; do you deny what happened in Bucha, Kremenchuk or Voinnytsia too? Places where war crimes investigators can access.
The Snake Island soldiers surviving after being reported killed, that was fog of war. Speaking of war crimes, what about the 50+ Azov Battalion POWs the Russians just burned alive or the POW that was castrated and then shot in the head? That’s only some of the Russian war crimes and only from the last week or so.
Trying to suggest moral equivalency between Russia and Ukraine is simply false and offensive to anyone who knows or cares about what the Russians are doing in Ukraine. Slava Ukraini.
@Daniel O’Neill: the comments I was responding to have now vanished for some reason but there’s my response above anyway.
@Daniel O’Neill: Thanks for coming back to me. I actually wrote a rather long response to the various points that you raise and I would repeat the but obviously, the Journal is engaged in one-sided censorship and I’m not going to waste my time going over them again.
Although on the 3 points you raise
1 There is some credibility to that theory however Putin knows that they will probably gain more territory before Ukraine throws in the towel.
2 I don’t think the Germans would worry about the Russians blowing up one of their reactors any tie soon.
3 I doubt Russia is putting all of its eggs in one basket and keeping it in a nuclear power plant. More likely they are diversifying it throughout the battlefield and not storing it in large dumps but much smaller ones.
It is telling though that the Journal along with other Western media outlets continues to push only one narrative and silence any contrarian opinion. Why is that and is this how a free press in a democracy works? Why are they afraid of an alternative view even when it can be backed up by video evidence or independent witnesses on the ground?
When so-called news media only promotes one side and silences dissent it just becomes a propaganda outlet like Pravda. I await the findings of war crimes investigators in those places that you mention as well as parallel investigations into alleged war crimes by Ukraine as highlighted by Amnesty.
@Digital Marketing Growth with Jarvis.ai-Free Trial:
1) I could be wrong, maybe I live in a bubble but my media diet suggests that Putin will ultimately lose and that before Christmas Kherson will be liberated and Crimea will be cut off from water. At the same time the Russians will have no significant gains, maybe some small ones in the Donbas. I don’t see the Ukrainians throwing in the towel ever. Any expert I’ve listened to says that the winter weather will favour the Ukrainians.
2) The German people don’t fear a Russian attack on their nuclear power stations; they fear nuclear energy because of Three Mile Island, Chernobyl, Fukushima and now if Putin has his way, Zaporizhia. But like the Finns and Swedes regarding NATO, there could now be a sea-change of German opinion on the nuclear energy matter. This will hurt Russia.
3) The ammunition stored in Zaporizhia is just a regional supply, they have and need many others but they are increasingly at risk of getting picked off. Diversification is not something the Russians excel at. They like to have big stockpiles for big artillery offensives. Russians lead from the rear and their officers on the front have no authority to take the initiative. The Russians suck at logistics away from rail-lines and now their supply lines are getting long so as to stay out of HIMARS range.
As for Amnesty International, the victim blamers, they are in good company with the Red Cross. I feel nothing but vitriol towards them.
In three words borrowed from Zelensky, weapons, weapons, weapons. The only way to end this war is for Ukraine to win this war. I hope they get ATACMS and F16s and every other bit of kit they need to do the job. Russia is a terrorist state and needs to be declared so by the US.
Imagine if turkey cut off all access to and from out of the Black sea.
@Dave Byrne: sure why would they ?
@John Kavanagh: I’m sure there is some agreement for transiting through Turkey, But imagine if it was country who decides to stop playing ball and decide to close the access to the Black sea
@Dave Byrne: There’s a thing called the Montreux Convention Regarding the Regime of the Straits that covers all of that.
@Digital Marketing Growth with Jarvis.ai-Free Trial:
1) I could be wrong, maybe I live in a bubble but my media diet suggests that Putin will ultimately lose and that before Christmas Kherson will be liberated and Crimea will be cut off from water. At the same time the Russians will have no significant gains, maybe some small ones in the Donbas. I don’t see the Ukrainians throwing in the towel ever. Any expert I’ve listened to says that the winter weather will favour the Ukrainians.
2) The German people don’t fear a Russian attack on their nuclear power stations; they fear nuclear energy because of Three Mile Island, Chernobyl, Fukushima and now if Putin has his way, Zaporizhia. But like the Finns and Swedes regarding NATO, there could now be a sea-change of German opinion on the nuclear energy matter. This will hurt Russia.
3) The ammunition stored in Zaporizhia is just a regional supply, they have and need many others but they are increasingly at risk of getting picked off. Diversification is not something the Russians excel at. They like to have big stockpiles for big artillery offensives. Russians lead from the rear and their officers on the front have no authority to take the initiative. The Russians suck at logistics away from rail-lines and now their supply lines are getting long so as to stay out of HIMARS range.
As for Amnesty International, the victim blamers, they are in good company with the Red Cross. I feel nothing but vitriol towards them.
In three words borrowed from Zelensky, weapons, weapons, weapons. The only way to end this war is for Ukraine to win this war. I hope they get ATACMS and F16s and every other bit of kit they need to do the job. Russia is a terrorist state and needs to be declared so by the US.
@Daniel O’Neill: responding to a comment further above. It doubled up somehow. some error message. Out of context here. sorry!
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