A second civilian cargo ship, carrying steel products to Africa, safely reached Romanian waters after leaving the Ukrainian port city of Odesa through a temporary Black Sea corridor, Ukraine said Sunday.
Earlier in August, Kyiv announced it had created a new maritime corridor. Russia last month left a Black Sea grain deal, which allowed for safe navigation of civilian grain shipments from Ukrainian ports.
In leaving the agreement, Moscow warned that any vessels leaving Ukrainian ports would be considered military targets.
“The second vessel has reached Romanian waters after successfully navigating through our temporary Black Sea corridor,” President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said on X, the social media platform formerly known as Twitter.
He said the ship — a Liberian-flagged bulk carrier called Primus — was carrying steel destined for the African market.
“I thank everyone who made this possible, our port workers, our warriors and everyone who defends freedom,” he said.
Also, Ukrainian authorities are investigating what caused a collision between two warplanes while on a training mission, killing three Ukrainian pilots, in the west of the country.
According to the air force’s Telegram page, two L-39 training military aircraft collided Friday during a combat mission over Ukraine’s western Zhytomyr region.
President Zelenskyy in his nightly address Saturday, paid tribute to the pilots, including Andriy Pilshchykov, a well-known pilot with the call name “Juice,” who advocated for Ukraine receiving F-16 fighter jets. Zelenskyy said he was a “Ukrainian officer, one of those who helped our country a lot.”
The other two pilots were Viacheslav Minka and Serhiy Prokazin.
Ukraine’s State Bureau of Investigation said the inquiry will determine whether the planes were in good condition and whether all rules were followed prior to the flight. Specialists also will examine the black boxes that record data about the planes’ movements and pilot reactions.
“It is too early to discuss details. Certainly, all circumstances will be clarified,” Zelenskyy said.
Ukraine counteroffensive
Ukrainian forces have made tactically significant gains in western Zaporizhzhia region, advancing through some of the most challenging layers of Russian fortifications, the Institute for the Study of War reported in its daily briefing Saturday.
There are signs that Ukrainian troops have broken through Russian defenses along the southern front and may soon be able to advance more quickly, the Reuters news agency reported.
Russian sources claimed the Ukrainians were attacking toward the rear defensive lines near Verbove, northeast of Zaporizhzhia.
Ukrainian forces now seem to be within striking distance of the next fortifications, which may be weaker than the previous set of Russian defenses but still pose a significant challenge, the ISW reports.
Russia’s defensive lines are the most layered and formidable in Zaporizhzhia region, as the occupying force anticipated and prepared to thwart expected Ukrainian advances toward Melitopol and Berdiansk.
After reportedly taking multiple casualties and losing numerous tanks and vehicles while attacking through dense Russian minefields over the past two months, Ukrainian forces liberated part of the village of Robotyne and the area around it, an important advance toward Melitopol, northeast of Crimea.
Ukraine said Sunday it downed four Russian cruise missiles overnight over northern and central parts of the country.
The governor of the Kyiv region, Ruslan Kravchenko, said two people were wounded and 10 buildings damaged by falling missile debris in one unspecified area of the region.
“Thanks to the professional work of the air defense forces, there were no strikes on critical or residential infrastructure,” he said in a statement.
All of Ukraine was under air raid alerts for about three hours early Sunday before they were cleared at around 6 a.m. local time.
Russian forces shelled a cafe in Podoly — a suburb of the strategically significant northeastern city of Kupiansk — killing two civilians and injuring a third one on Saturday.
The attacks are raising fears that the Russians are pushing to reclaim front-line cities in the northeast region. Ukrainian forces say that fighting there has become more intense, but the Russians haven’t broken through.
British defense officials said Saturday that Russia’s probable objective in the region will be to advance west to the Oskil River and establish a buffer zone around Luhansk region.
U.K. military intelligence reports assess that Russia is attempting to reverse the gradual gains of the Ukrainian counteroffensive near Bakhmut and the Zaporizhzhia region.
The Ukrainian regional administration of Zaporizhzhia reported Saturday that Russia shelled Mala Tokmachka on Friday — one of the villages near which Kyiv’s troops were said to be gaining ground. One resident was killed and another injured in the attack.
Some information for this report came from The Associated Press, Agence France-Presse and Reuters.
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