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A cargo ship has successfully made the voyage across the Black Sea from Ukraine to Turkey, using a shipping corridor established by Kyiv in an effort to break the Russian siege of its ports.
Maritime tracking platform MarineTraffic shows the German-Chinese owned Joseph Schulte, an almost 1,000-foot long container ship flying under the flag of Hong Kong, had reached Turkey’s Bosphorus Strait in the early hours of Friday morning, while eyewitnesses report spotting it arriving in the NATO country’s waters.
The vessel had been stranded in Ukraine’s southern port of Odesa for a year and a half, having arrived there the day before Moscow launched its full-scale invasion.
The journey is the first under the terms of a Kyiv-backed “humanitarian corridor” designed to guarantee safe passage through the mine-strewn waters of the Black Sea. According to the Ukrainian Navy, the shipping lane will “primarily be used for civilian ships which have been in the Ukrainian ports of Chornomorsk, Odesa and Pivdennyi since the beginning of the full-scale invasion by Russia.”
Ukraine’s maritime infrastructure has come under heavy bombardment after Russia unilaterally withdrew from a U.N.-brokered grain deal last month, credited with enabling 32.9 million tons of foodstuffs to leave Ukraine’s ports and helping prevent famine in the Global South.
Since then, Moscow’s forces have stepped up their threats against vessels operating in international waters. “All vessels sailing in the waters of the Black Sea to Ukrainian ports will be regarded as potential carriers of military cargo,” the country’s top brass has warned. It has so far refused to acknowledge Kyiv’s shipping corridor.
On Tuesday, Russia’s defense ministry confirmed it had fired warning shots at the Şükrü Okan, a Palau-flagged civilian cargo ship, close to Turkey’s maritime border, while video released by officials showed troops boarding it and interrogating the crew.
Earlier this week, former U.S. Admiral and NATO Supreme Allied Commander Europe James Stavridis told POLITICO that Moscow’s tactics could force the alliance to intervene.
“If Russia starts seizing vessels or seeks to scare them away, I think it likely NATO will respond by supporting a humanitarian corridor for shipping,” Stavridis said.
