KYIV — Ukraine is still shipping hundreds of thousands of tons of grain and other agricultural products through its self-declared safe waterways in the Black Sea, despite heavy Russian strikes on the Port of Odesa.
According to Kyiv’s infrastructure ministry, six vessels left the city on Ukraine’s south coast for Turkey’s Bosphorus Strait on Thursday, in the wake of a missile attack on a merchant ship by Moscow’s military that killed one sailor and injured three foreign crew members. Together the vessels are carrying a reported 231,000 tons of foodstuffs destined for the international market, while another five ships are waiting to be loaded before setting sail.
“Movement along the Ukrainian sea corridor did not stop despite Russia’s systematic attacks on the port infrastructure,” officials said in a statement.
A UN-brokered deal that saw Russia agree not to attack grain vessels or port infrastructure collapsed in July, with a heavy barrage of rockets destroying warehouses full of produce just hours after the Kremlin’s unilateral withdrawal from the agreement.
However, Kyiv has since set out to challenge Moscow’s control over the Black Sea and has established a “humanitarian corridor” offering safe passage to container ships running routes through the mine-strewn shipping lanes.
Since August 8, 3.3 million tons of agricultural goods and metals have been exported despite the ongoing threats from Russia, official statistics show. The route avoids international waters, hugging the coasts of NATO member states Romania and Bulgaria to reach Turkey. The initiative has been accompanied by multiple Ukrainian strikes against Russia’s Black Sea fleet and air defense forces based in the occupied Crimean peninsula.
Merchant vessel hit
On Wednesday, however, a missile struck a Liberian-flagged container vessel, killing a harbor pilot and injuring another three civilians — citizens of the Philippines — who were on board, the Ukrainian armed forces said.
The November 8 incident marks the first Russian attack on a civilian vessel going to a Ukrainian port; two ships previously struck sea mines in the corridor without suffering significant damage. Moscow had vowed to treat any vessel en route to Ukraine as a target.
“Now Ukraine has to provide quick and effective compensation from the established insurance fund for the family of the deceased and the injured, as well as compensation for damages to the shipowner,” said Andrii Klymenko, project manager at the Institute of Black Sea Strategic Studies. “This will be appreciated by all participants in the process and the maritime community around the world.”
The Black Sea route, once a major thoroughfare for seaborne oil and gas exports, has become increasingly dangerous to sail as a result of the war raging on land. Ukraine in August struck a Russian vessel believed to have been carrying fuel for the armed forces in a major show of force that forced Moscow to rebase its warships further east.
“Everything the Russians are moving back and forth on the Black Sea are our valid military targets,” Oleg Ustenko, a senior adviser to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, told POLITICO at the time, arguing that his country had a duty to help end the war faster by targeting Moscow’s exports and supply chains.
That same month, former NATO Supreme Allied Commander Europe James Stavridis, an ex-U.S. admiral, said that continued Russian strikes on shipping could push the Alliance to get involved in protecting vessels. The West, he argued, “is not going to provide all the weapons and money for Ukraine, only to watch Russia strangle their economy with an illegal blockade.”
Veronika Melkozerova reported from Kyiv, Ukraine. Gabriel Gavin reported from Yerevan, Armenia.