MOSCOW, August 15. /TASS/. More than 50 foreign ships from 14 countries are still blocked in six Ukrainian ports, Mikhail Mizintsev, chief of Russia’s National Defense Management Center, said on Monday.
"Fifty-six foreign ships from 14 countries are still blocked in six Ukrainian ports (Kherson, Nikolayev, Chernomorsk, Ochakov, Odessa, and Yuzhny)," he said.
According to Mizintsev, who also heads the Russian Joint Coordination Headquarters for Humanitarian Response in Ukraine, since August 1, sixteen ships have left Ukrainian ports as part of the initiative on mutual understanding on safe export of grain from Ukrainian ports. "As many as 453,246 tonnes of food, including 379,981 tonnes of corn, 6,000 tonnes of sunflower oil, 50,301 tonnes of flour, 11,000 tonnes of soybeans, 3,050 tonnes of wheat, and 2,914 tonnes of sunflower seeds have been exported," he said.
"Risks for navigation and of damages to port infrastructure from drifting Ukrainian mines are still in place for the Black Sea littoral states," he stressed. "The Russian armed forces have created necessary conditions for the operation of two maritime humanitarian corridors.".
Units of the Ukrainian armed forces established a base in a kindergarten in the town of Avdeyevka north of Donetsk, mining the approaches to it, Mizintsev said.
"Units of the Ukrainian Armed Forces were deployed in kindergarten N10 in Avdeyevka. Checkpoints were set up along the perimeter. The approaches to the kindergarten are mined, while the local population was not warned about this intentionally," said Mizintsev, who also heads the Russian Joint Coordination Headquarters for Humanitarian Response in Ukraine.
In addition, another kindergarten, in the Donetsk town of Nikolayevka, is also occupied by Ukrainian units. Gun stations were placed in the direct vicinity of the kindergarten.
Ukrainian nationalists have mined two automobile bridges in Kurakhovka, the Donetsk People’s Republic (DPR), Mizintsev said.
"In Kurakhovka of the Donetsk People's Republic, nationalists have mined two automobile bridges over the Volchya River, which they intend to blow up, in order to hit the headlines in Ukrainian and western media under the proven scenario and accuse the Russian Armed Forces of allegedly indiscriminate strikes on transport infrastructure," said Mizintsev, who also heads the Russian Joint Coordination Headquarters for Humanitarian Response in Ukraine.