Shipping firms suspend some Ukraine port stops after Russian attacks

Some shipping companies are suspending stops at Ukrainian sea ports after Russia increased strikes on the country’s Black Sea coast, shipowners and officials said Thursday.

Lloyd’s List Intelligence, a maritime data company, said the escalation in an area important to global grain exports was pushing up wheat prices as shipowners were deterred by rising risks.

Ukraine’s Foreign Minister Andriy Sybiga said that on July 22, no vessels passed through Ukraine’s Black Sea maritime corridor at peak harvest time. He warned that this threatened global food security.

Maersk and Hapag-Lloyd said they were suspending operations at the Ukrainian port of Chornomorsk. Hapag-Lloyd said recent missile and drone attacks in the Odesa region had sharply increased operational and security risks.

Ukraine is a major exporter of grain and vegetable oil. The source says 90 percent of the country’s exports pass through Black Sea ports in and around Odesa. Russia and Ukraine together account for about 30 percent 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 few sources of hard currency during the war.

AFP monitoring of the MarineTraffic shipping tracker found that no commercial vessel had entered any Ukrainian Black Sea port so far on Thursday.

Russia has regularly targeted Odesa during the four and a half years of war and has recently intensified strikes on ports, grain and sunflower oil terminals, and commercial vessels in Ukrainian harbours.

Odesa shipping broker Anton Shapran said the situation in the last few days had become the worst since May 2022, early in the war. He said some smaller ships could still be diverted through Danube river ports.

Last Sunday, a Russian strike killed 10 people, including four Indians, aboard a cargo ship off the coast of Odesa. Ukraine has also intensified attacks on ships in the Sea of Azov and on Russia’s so-called shadow fleet of sanctions-busting oil tankers.