This photo taken on September 20, 2023 shows trains with Ukrainian grain saved in wagons covered with white tarpaulin on the 2nd and 3rd tracks in Dorohusk station at the Polish-Ukrainian border.
Damien Simonart | AFP | Getty Visuals
Ukraine demands extra air defenses to safeguard its grain export routes as well as locations bordering Russia, President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said on Saturday, as he addressed an global summit on food security in Kyiv.
“There is a deficit of air protection – that is no top secret,” Zelenskyy advised the Grain from Ukraine summit, which was attended by senior officers from European international locations, together with Swiss President Alain Berset and Lithuanian Primary Minister Ingrida Simonyte.
Zelenskyy was speaking immediately after Russia attacked Ukraine with 75 drones overnight, the major drone assault of the war. The joint press meeting of the 3 leaders was slice quick by a further air raid siren.
Zelenskyy explained Ukraine would be provided by its foreign associates with vessels to accompany convoys of cargo ships from Ukraine’s ports to warranty their security.
“I have agreements with numerous international locations about strong accompaniment of convoys by Ukrainians, but making use of (overseas) tools,” he explained.
Separately, European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen pledged guidance in a letter to Zelenskyy that she shared on social media platform X, saying the Fee would make readily available 50 million euros for “brief repairs and upgrades of infrastructure in Ukraine’s ports.”
The Ukrainian president said Kyiv hoped to clear up its air protection shortage by way of new materials from associates and raising its possess output capability, something on which he claimed there had been progress.
“As of today, I are not able to say information what we are producing and wherever, but there is development,” he explained.
Ukraine, a major exporter of grain, has been exporting grain through unilateral corridors by way of the Black sea, after Russia withdrew in July from a UN-brokered offer to enable grain ships as a result of its blockade.
Ukraine’s recent Black sea grain export corridors all start off from ports in Ukraine’s southern region of Odesa.
“There are particular air protection systems… we are inquiring for them,” Zelenskyy explained. “We have by now obtained an answer when all those systems will start to guard that area. Since there, the two the corridor and the folks are essential.”
Requested about the protests by Polish and Slovak truckers which have blocked considerably of Ukraine’s highway-primarily based cargo supply in modern days, Zelenskyy blamed the issue on the internal politics of those people international locations.
“I feel that there are issues on the border 1st and foremost mainly because of certain political actions by our neighbors,” he told a push conference following the summit.
Zelenskyy mentioned he was assured the issue would be solved if Ukraine’s neighbors had been supplied “a little bit of time” to deal with the dispute.