Here come grain ships

a guided walking tour in Kyiv.
Photo: EPA.

Ukraine's President Volodymyr Zelensky visits port as Ukraine prepares to ship out grain. He's saying the departure of grain will begin with several ships that were already loaded but could not leave Ukrainian ports after Russia invaded in late February.

Zelenskyy has visits a Black Sea port as crews prepared terminals to export grain trapped by Russia’s five-month-old war, work that was inching forward a week after a deal was struck to allow critical food supplies to flow to millions of impoverished people facing hunger worldwide.

“The first vessel, the first ship is being loaded since the beginning of the war,” 

Zelenskyy, in his signature olive T-shirt, tells reporters on Friday as he stands next to a Turkish-flagged ship at the Chernomorsk port in the Odesa region.

Ukraine is a key global exporter of wheat, barley, corn and sunflower oil, and the loss of those supplies has raised global food prices, threatened political instability and helped push more people into poverty and hunger in already vulnerable countries.