New corridor across the Black Sea: ‘Very hopeful’

Within a few days, two ships left the port of Chornomorsk in the Odessa region, carrying a total of 20,600 tons of grain. The ships are traveling through a new corridor that Ukraine is testing over waters controlled by NATO countries Bulgaria and Romania.

Three more ships – carrying 127,000 tons of grain – are on the way, the deputy prime minister wrote oleksandr Kubrakov On X, Twitter previously.

Charlotta Rudy, deputy director of the Center for Eastern European Studies, points out that getting grain out of Ukraine via the Black Sea is important for the Ukrainian economy and recipient countries.

– Not least with regard to the countries of Asia, Africa and the Middle East, which are very negatively affected by the exposure of food prices to this state of uncertainty, she says.

Politically sensitive options

In July this year, Russia announced that it would not extend its part of separate agreements with Russia and Ukraine on grain through the Black Sea. Since then, Ukraine has used alternative transportation methods, especially by land.

It has become a politically sensitive issue for Poland, Romania, Bulgaria, Slovakia and Hungary. The countries imposed a ban on importing Ukrainian grain after local farmers protested, saying they found it difficult to compete with Ukraine.

Last week, the European Commission put an end to the import ban – something that was not well received by the countries concerned.

Rohde points out that it is generally difficult and expensive to extract grains by land.

– Transportation in the Black Sea is very important and it is difficult to imagine that the land route can completely replace it in the long term.

On Russia’s terms

Even during the period of the grain agreement, Ukraine faced difficulties in its exports.

– What Russia did is that sometimes they allowed ships to pass, and at other times they said that they did not have the opportunity to inspect. This caused huge queues in the Bosphorus.

– At the end of the life of this agreement on paper, there was not much that had been accomplished.

Rudy points out that given Russia’s strategic efforts to sabotage Ukrainian exports and production, through extensive attacks on grain-related infrastructure, there are concerns that these ships could be attacked as well.

Global crew

But the risk becomes lower when you are transparent about ships traveling with international crews and sailing in NATO waters.

– Now we have NATO Article 5 – an attack on NATO territory is an attack on the entire alliance. Article 5 in particular is something that Russia has shown respect for.

– From a ship logistics perspective, it is not ideal to go this route. That’s why they didn’t choose to use it before. But now a way has been found and it is very positive.

Rude confirms that Ukraine has also achieved some military successes in the Black Sea recently. This also reduces Russia’s chances of action.

-You have to see what’s happening now as the beginning of something, and test yourself to see if it works.

– If you can create the corridor so that you feel safe with all these measures: to move in territorial waters, to have a global crew on board from countries that Russia does not want to collide with – and also military measures of course – it is incredibly important.