First Ship To Use Ukraine’s Alternative NATO Grain Route Exits Black Sea

Via ShipSpotting.com

By SF: Kiev proudly declared that the exit of Josef Schulte from the port of Odessa marked the beginning of the work of a new security corridor, which was launched unilaterally. However, the statement turned out to be quite exaggerated.

The vessel is a container ship but not a grain carrier. The Turkish Defense Ministry has confirmed that the vessel is not carrying grain.

Permission for the vessel to leave the Ukrainian port was requested to Moscow by its co-owner from China. The request was officially sent by the Hong Kong Foreign Ministry, which is a guarantee of security for Russia.

One of the main reasons for the suspension of the grain deal was the use of the security corridor for attacks on Russian ships and facilities in Crimea and the Black Sea coast. The grain deal was also used for the unhindered delivery of weapons to Ukraine from NATO countries. In the case of Josef Schulte, there is no such threat.

For this number of reasons, Moscow did not prevent the passage of the vessel, which Kiev presented as another victory.

Originally published on ZeroHedge

The Hong Kong-flagged Joseph Schulte is the first vessel to have left Ukrainian ports which has successfully utilized a NATO-backed alternate corridor to exit the Black Sea in a direct challenge to Russian attempts at blocking Ukraine’s access to the Black Sea. 

Maritime tracking sites show that it carefully avoided international waters currently patrolled by Russian warships, opting instead to stick to a western route in waters controlled by NATO members Romania and Bulgaria.

The vessel had been stuck at the port of Odessa throughout the entirety of the war up till this week, which means it moved nowhere for one-and-a-half years.

The US, Ukraine, and Romania have been in recent high-level security meetings in order to agree upon an alternative shipping route, after Russia has stepped up bombardment of Ukraine’s ports and grain silos, including along the Danube which separates Ukraine and Romania.

Regional media has indicated the Joseph Schulte will anchor at Ambarli to the south off Istanbul. Turkey is still hoping to revive the Black Sea Grain Initiative deal which Moscow recently failed to renew, and pulled out of. This means Turkish officials are unlikely to wholeheartedly support the US-NATO plan at establishing a Romania-Bulgaria route.

“Our efforts are focused on making the grain corridor deal active again,” an unnamed defense official told a Turkish broadcaster. “We are not working on other solutions.”

One potential key transit point for Ukrainian grain in the new plan is the Romanian Black Sea port of Constanta. The country’s prime minister, Marcel Ciolacu, in a Friday statement expressed home that up to 60% of Ukrainian grain exports could pass through Romania – though admitted this is ambitious. The idea is that vessels would leave Ukrainian ports and enter Romanian ones and from there be shipped to outside destinations.