22 September 2023

After stopping of the grain corridor operations, several vessels have already left Ukrainian ports, and five new ones have entered.

The Ukrainian grain corridor formally ended its operation in July of this year, after which no new ships entered Ukrainian deep-sea ports for about two months.

Starting from mid-August, the situation began to gradually improve. The first vessel - the container ship Joseph Schulte - left the port of Odessa on August 16. It was one of the ships blocked in Ukrainian ports since February 24, 2022, when the full-scale Russian invasion of Ukraine began.

From this date and until mid-September, four more vessels, blocked since February 24, using the new "temporary route", carrying agricultural goods and metal products.

On September 16, it became known that two vessels - Resilient Africa and Aroyat - entered the port of Chornomorsk. These were the first vessels to enter Ukrainian deep sea ports after stopping of grain corridor operations. The first of them was loaded with wheat and left on September 19, the second - on September 22. On the same day, Oleksandr Kubrakov reported that three more ships were heading to Ukrainian deep-sea ports for loading. After loading 127 thousand tons of Ukrainian agricultural products and iron ore, the ships will go to the ports of China, Egypt and Spain.

It can be concluded that Ukraine has already broken through the sea blockade, but it is still unclear whether there will be a Russian response, and what it will be.