Ukraine: First foreign-flagged ship arrives in country since start of war – to be loaded with grain

A foreign-flagged ship arrived in Ukraine on Saturday for the first time since the war started in February, and will be loaded with grain, Ukrainian Infrastructure Minister Oleksandr Kubrakov said.

Ukraine is starting to resume grain exports in an effort overseen by a Joint Coordination Centre in Istanbul where Russian, Ukrainian, Turkish and UN personnel are working.

The United Nations and Türkiye brokered a deal after UN warnings of possible outbreaks of famine due to a halt in grain shipments from Ukraine. Before the invasion, Russia and Ukraine together accounted for nearly a third of global wheat exports.

Kubrakov said the Barbados-flagged general cargo ship Fulmar S was in the Ukrainian port of Chornomorsk.

“We are doing (everything) possible to ensure that our ports can receive and handle more vessels. In particular, we plan to reach the level of at least three to five vessels per day in two weeks’ (time),” he wrote on Facebook.

“This event is an important market signal that the (grain shipment deal) is a safe and, most importantly, profitable business opportunity for shipowners to return to Ukrainian ports,” he added.

Ukraine eventually aims to ship out three million tonnes a month from its Black Sea ports, he said. Roughly 20 million tonnes of grain from last year’s crops are still stuck in the country.

Also on Saturday, a second ship carrying Ukrainian grain exports was inspected off Istanbul and was cleared to proceed through the Bosporus to its final destination, the Turkish Defence Ministry tweeted on Saturday.

The Navi Star, sailing under the flag of Panama and carrying 33,000 tons of maize, was bound for Ireland after checks. It is one of the three vessels that left Ukraine’s Black Sea ports of Odesa on Friday. They are reportedly carrying 57,000 tons of maize in total.

Earlier this week, the first grain cargo ship to leave a Ukrainian port since the Russian invasion in February, the Razoni, was inspected in Istanbul, before proceeding to the Lebanese port of Tripoli.

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Under the deal agreed in July to lift Russia’s months-long blockade of the ports, Ukraine pledged to guide the ships through waters that have been mined and Russia promised to not target the ships and certain port infrastructure.

Experts, however, warned shipping the millions of tonnes of blockaded grain from Ukrainian ports in time is barely possible as the new harvest begins.

There are growing calls for alternative export routes to be found as a return to pre-war levels of Ukrainian exports remains challenging despite the reopening of maritime routes.

Ukraine, known as the breadbasket of Europe, was the world’s largest exporter of sunflower oil, the third largest exporter of rapeseed and barley, the fourth largest exporter of maize, and the fifth largest exporter of wheat before Russian troops invaded in February.