Russia has intensified its attacks on Odesa, targeting ports, agricultural terminals and commercial vessels in recent strikes. (EPA Images pic) KYIV: Some shipping companies are suspending stops at Ukraine's seaports, shipowners and officials said Thursday, after Russia stepped up strikes on the country's Black Sea coast. The escalation in a region critical to global grain exports is driving up wheat prices as shipowners are deterred by mounting risks, said Lloyd's List Intelligence, a maritime data company.
On July 22, "zero vessels passed through Ukraine's Black Sea maritime corridor – right at peak harvest," Ukraine's foreign minister Andriy Sybiga said on Wednesday, warning this was threatening global food security. Two major shipping companies, Maersk and Hapag-Lloyd, said they were suspending operations in the Ukrainian port of Chornomorsk. "Recent missile and drone attacks in the Odesa region have significantly increased the operational and security risks," Hapag-Lloyd said in a comment to AFP.
In Ukraine, a major exporter of grain and vegetable oil, 90% of exports pass through the Black Sea ports in and around Odesa. Together, Russia and Ukraine account for roughly 30% of the global wheat market supply. For Ukraine, agricultural exports – which mainly supply markets in Asia, Africa and the Middle East – are one of the very few sources of hard currency during war.
According to AFP's monitoring of the MarineTraffic shipping tracker, no commercial vessel entered any Ukrainian Black Sea port so far on Thursday. Russia has regularly targeted Odesa throughout the four and a half years of war but has recently intensified strikes on its ports, grain and sunflower oil terminals, and on commercial vessels in Ukrainian harbours. "In the last few days, the situation has become the worst since May 2022," at the beginning of the war, said Odesa shipping broker Anton Shapran.
Though it was still possible to divert some smaller ships via the Danube River ports, he added. Last Sunday, a Russian strike killed 10 people, among them four Indians, aboard a cargo ship off the coast of Odesa. Ukraine, for its part, has intensified attacks on ships in the Sea of Azov as well as on Russia's so-called "shadow fleet" of sanctions-busting oil tankers.
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