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Ukrainian Infrastructure Minister Oleksandr Kubrakov on Wednesday said the Joseph Schulte container ship had left the port of Odesa and was sailing along a temporary corridor for civilian vessels.
The ship’s departure defies a Russian warning that it could sink civilian vessels traveling to and from Ukraine after Moscow withdrew from a deal allowing the export of grain via the Black Sea.
What do we know about the ship?
“A container ship has left the port of Odesa right now,” Kubrakov said on the Telegram messaging app, adding that the vessel had been in the port since Russia launched its full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022.
The Hong Kong-flagged vessel, the Joseph Schulte, is using a new temporary corridor for merchant ships at their own risk. It is carrying more than 2,100 containers with about 30,000 metric tons of cargo, according to Ukraine, and is initially heading for the Turkish city of Istanbul.
Ukraine last week announced a “humanitarian corridor” in the Black Sea to release cargo ships that have been trapped in its ports since Moscow’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022.
German shipping group Bernhard Schulte Shipmanagement (BSM) said the ship, which it jointly owns with a Chinese bank, was traveling via the territorial waters of Ukraine, Romania, and Turkey “to allow for a safe passage of southbound vessels.” The nature of the cargo was not specified by BSM.
Attack on Danube port
As a sign of the risks involved, over the weekend a Russian warship fired warning shots at a cargo ship heading for Izmail, a port on the Danube in southern Ukraine directly opposite NATO and European Union member Romania.
Izmail has become one of the main exit routes for Ukrainian agricultural products since Moscow ended the agreement on grain exports, a source of revenue for Kyiv, in July.
The Russian army also continued to target the Danube port infrastructure with its bombardments, launching another drone attack on Tuesday night.
“As a result of enemy strikes on one of the Danube ports, grain warehouses have been damaged”, Odessa regional governor Oleg Kiper announced. On Wednesday, Romania strongly condemned the new Russian attacks on Izmail after several strikes in recent weeks.
Meanwhile, authorities in the Romanian Black Sea port of Constanta told the Reuters news agency that Ukraine had shipped 8.1 million metric tons of grains through the port in the first seven months of the year.
rc/sms (Reuters, AFP)
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