Shipping firms avoid Ukraine grain ports after Russian strikes

Some shipping companies have suspended services to Ukraine's Black Sea ports after increased Russian attacks on the coast, officials said on 23 July 2026.

Lloyd's List Intelligence, a maritime data company, said the escalation in a region important to global grain exports was pushing up international wheat prices.

Ukraine is a major exporter of corn, wheat, colza, sunflower seeds and vegetable oil. The source said 90 percent of Ukraine's commodity exports pass through Black Sea ports in and around Odesa, and that Russia and Ukraine together account for about 30 percent of global wheat supplies.

Maersk and Hapag-Lloyd said they had halted operations at Chornomorsk, one of Ukraine's three main deepwater terminals. Hapag-Lloyd said recent missile and drone attacks in the Odesa region had sharply raised operational and security risks. It said the Ukraine market was still being served through road and rail routes crossing Poland and Romania.

The MarineTraffic monitoring website showed that no commercial ship entered a Ukrainian Black Sea port on Thursday morning. Ukraine's Foreign Minister Andrii Sybiga said on Wednesday that no ship had taken Ukraine's Black Sea maritime corridor that day, during the peak harvest period. He warned that the attacks were a threat to global food security and said Ukraine had called for a UN Security Council meeting on July 27.

Agricultural exports, mainly supplying Asia, Africa and the Middle East, are one of Ukraine's few sources of hard currency during the war that began in February 2022.

Russia has regularly targeted Odesa and has recently intensified strikes on ports, grain and sunflower oil terminals, and commercial vessels in Ukrainian harbours. Odesa shipping broker Anton Shapran of Maritime Logistics said the situation in recent days had become the worst since May 2022, though he said some smaller ships could still be diverted through Danube river ports.

A Russian strike on Sunday killed 10 people, including four Indian crew members, on the cargo ship Golden Leo off the Odesa coast. India summoned the Russian ambassador to protest the deaths.

Ukraine has also increased attacks on shipping in the Sea of Azov and on Russia's so-called shadow fleet of sanctions-busting oil tankers.

The Kpler trade and commodity monitoring website said no produce export had been registered from Odesa since July 12, when 20,000 tonnes of corn left for Turkey. It said Chornomorsk had recorded no exports since July 19, when 65,000 tonnes of corn were sent to Bulgaria, and that Pivdennyi, 40 kilometres east of Odesa, had no exports during the week.