KYIV: Ukraine has asked the International Maritime Organization to send a monitoring mission to ports in the southern Odesa region amid intensified Russian attacks, Foreign Minister Andrii Sybiha said on Wednesday.
In recent weeks, Russian troops have ramped up missile strikes on Ukraine’s southern port infrastructure and damaged a total of four foreign-flagged civilian vessels since Oct. 6.
“Amid increased Russian terror, Ukraine has officially appealed to the International Maritime Organization to immediately send an international monitoring mission to the ports,” Sybiha told a briefing in Odesa after meeting his counterparts from the Nordic-Baltic Eight group.
He stressed that Russian strikes on port infrastructure, grain storage facilities and civilian vessels threatened global food security.
Ukraine is a major global grain grower and before Russia’s invasion in 2022 the country exported about 6 million tons of grain alone per month via the Black Sea. About 85 percent of Ukrainian food exports now leaves Ukraine from its Black Sea ports.
Insurance sources had already reported a jump in insurance costs and some canceled bookings after recent Russian attacks.
Ukraine says that Russia had carried out almost 60 attacks on ports over the past three months, resulting in the damage and destruction of nearly 300 port infrastructure facilities and 22 civilian vessels.
![]()
Ukraine requests monitoring mission at Odesa ports amid Russian strikes
Short Url
https://arab.news/gbq8t
Ukraine requests monitoring mission at Odesa ports amid Russian strikes
- Russian strikes on port infrastructure, grain storage facilities and civilian vessels threatened global food security
- Insurance sources had already reported a jump in insurance costs and some canceled bookings after recent Russian attacks
North Korea’s Kim sacks vice premier, rails against ‘incompetence’
SEOUL: North Korean leader Kim Jong Un has fired his vice premier, compared him to a goat and railed against “incompetent” officials, state media said Tuesday, in a rare and very public broadside against apparatchiks at the opening of a critical factory.
Vice Premier Yang Sung Ho was sacked “on the spot,” the state-run Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) said, in a speech in which Kim attacked “irresponsible, rude and incompetent leading officials.”
“Please, Comrade Vice Premier, resign by yourself when you can do it on your own before it is too late,” Kim reportedly said.
“He is ineligible for an important duty,” he added.
“Put simply, it was like hitching a cart to a goat — an accidental mistake in our cadre appointment process,” the North Korean leader explained.
“After all, it is an ox that pulls a cart, not a goat.”
Nuclear-armed North Korea, which is under multiple sets of sanctions over its weapons programs, has long struggled with its moribund state-managed economy and chronic food shortages.
Kim has been quick to scold lazy officials for alleged mismanagement of economic policy but such a public dismissal is very rare.
Touring the opening of an industrial machinery complex on Monday, Kim blasted cadres who for “too long been accustomed to defeatism, irresponsibility and passiveness.”
Yang was “unfit to be entrusted with heavy duties,” Kim said, according to KCNA.
And he urged a quick turnaround in the “centuries-old backwardness of the economy and build a modernized and advanced one capable of firmly guaranteeing the future of our state.”
Images released by Pyongyang showed a stern-looking Kim delivering a speech at the venue in South Hamgyong Province in the country’s frigid northeast, with workers in attendance wearing green uniforms and matching grey hats.
- Lazy officials -
The impoverished North has long prioritized its military and banned nuclear weapons programs over providing for its people.
It is highly vulnerable to natural disasters including flood and drought due to a chronic lack of infrastructure, deforestation and decades of state mismanagement.
The new machine complex makes up part of a large machinery-manufacturing belt linking the northeast to Wonsan further south, “accounting for about 16 percent of North Korea’s total machinery output,” according to Yang Moo-jin of the University of North Korean Studies.
Kim’s public dismissal of Yang mirrors past cases such as Jang Song Thaek, Kim’s uncle, who was executed in 2013 after being accused of plotting to overthrow his nephew, Yang said.
The North Korean leader is “using public accountability as a shock tactic to warn party officials,” he told AFP.
Pyongyang is gearing up for its first congress of its ruling party in five years, with analysts expecting it in the coming weeks.
Economic policy, as well as defense and military planning, are likely to be high on the agenda.
Last month, Kim vowed to root out “evil” at a major meeting of Pyongyang’s top brass.
State media did not offer specifics, though it did say the ruling party had revealed numerous recent “deviations” in discipline — a euphemism for corruption.
Vice Premier Yang Sung Ho was sacked “on the spot,” the state-run Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) said, in a speech in which Kim attacked “irresponsible, rude and incompetent leading officials.”
“Please, Comrade Vice Premier, resign by yourself when you can do it on your own before it is too late,” Kim reportedly said.
“He is ineligible for an important duty,” he added.
“Put simply, it was like hitching a cart to a goat — an accidental mistake in our cadre appointment process,” the North Korean leader explained.
“After all, it is an ox that pulls a cart, not a goat.”
Nuclear-armed North Korea, which is under multiple sets of sanctions over its weapons programs, has long struggled with its moribund state-managed economy and chronic food shortages.
Kim has been quick to scold lazy officials for alleged mismanagement of economic policy but such a public dismissal is very rare.
Touring the opening of an industrial machinery complex on Monday, Kim blasted cadres who for “too long been accustomed to defeatism, irresponsibility and passiveness.”
Yang was “unfit to be entrusted with heavy duties,” Kim said, according to KCNA.
And he urged a quick turnaround in the “centuries-old backwardness of the economy and build a modernized and advanced one capable of firmly guaranteeing the future of our state.”
Images released by Pyongyang showed a stern-looking Kim delivering a speech at the venue in South Hamgyong Province in the country’s frigid northeast, with workers in attendance wearing green uniforms and matching grey hats.
- Lazy officials -
The impoverished North has long prioritized its military and banned nuclear weapons programs over providing for its people.
It is highly vulnerable to natural disasters including flood and drought due to a chronic lack of infrastructure, deforestation and decades of state mismanagement.
The new machine complex makes up part of a large machinery-manufacturing belt linking the northeast to Wonsan further south, “accounting for about 16 percent of North Korea’s total machinery output,” according to Yang Moo-jin of the University of North Korean Studies.
Kim’s public dismissal of Yang mirrors past cases such as Jang Song Thaek, Kim’s uncle, who was executed in 2013 after being accused of plotting to overthrow his nephew, Yang said.
The North Korean leader is “using public accountability as a shock tactic to warn party officials,” he told AFP.
Pyongyang is gearing up for its first congress of its ruling party in five years, with analysts expecting it in the coming weeks.
Economic policy, as well as defense and military planning, are likely to be high on the agenda.
Last month, Kim vowed to root out “evil” at a major meeting of Pyongyang’s top brass.
State media did not offer specifics, though it did say the ruling party had revealed numerous recent “deviations” in discipline — a euphemism for corruption.
Latest updates
© 2026 SAUDI RESEARCH & PUBLISHING COMPANY, All Rights Reserved And subject to Terms of Use Agreement.