The shift happened fast. On July 17, 2023, Russia announced it was leaving the Black Sea Grain Initiative, and Ukraine’s biggest export lane went dark. Within a month Kyiv had a replacement, and it ran on the Ukrainian Navy’s own routes rather than a UN-backed agreement.
The old arrangement had run for under a year. It began operating on August 1, 2022, with Turkey helping to broker it, and a Joint Coordination Center in Istanbul oversaw the traffic. By the time Moscow walked out, nearly 33 million tons of grain had gone out aboard more than 1,000 ships, according to the Anadolu Agency account carried by The Istanbul Post. Europe took 40% of it, Asia 30%, Turkey 13%, Africa 12% and the Middle East 5%. The first vessel, the Razoni, left Odesa with 26,000 tons of corn bound for Lebanon.
The deal had wobbled before. Russia suspended its participation in October 2022 after attacks on its Black Sea Fleet, and Turkish diplomacy, including pressure from President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, brought it back. It was extended three times after the first 120-day term, most recently for two months in May 2023.
What Russia’s exit cost
Grain prices climbed at least 10% after the announcement, UkraineWorld reported. Its analysts called the withdrawal “a well-planned (albeit heinous) move, given the upcoming harvest season.” Ukraine’s Foreign Ministry said Russian shelling had destroyed 180,000 tonnes of grain crops, 26 port infrastructure facilities and five civilian ships in strikes on Odesa and the Danube ports.
A corridor on Ukraine’s terms
On August 16, 2023, a Hong Kong-flagged container ship, the Joseph Schulte, slipped out of Odesa. Deputy Prime Minister Oleksandr Kubrakov said it had been stuck in port since February 23, 2022, the day before the invasion. It carried more than 30,000 metric tons of cargo in 2,114 containers. Business Day reported that Moscow had not said whether it would respect the route, and shipping and insurance sources had voiced safety worries.
The corridor was built to free ships trapped at Chornomorsk, Odesa and Pivdennyi. Rather than cut straight toward the Bosphorus, it hugs the Romanian and Bulgarian coasts, as the Kyiv Independent described it, and so stays beside NATO members.
Ukraine’s military role in it is direct. When reports surfaced in late October that the route had been halted because of Russian warplanes and sea mines, Kubrakov called them false. “All available routes established by the Ukrainian Navy are valid and being used by civilian vessels,” he said. Wheat futures had already jumped 1.9% in Chicago on the rumor.
Volumes and risks
The numbers grew, though slowly. By October the corridor had carried about 700,000 tons of grain. On November 13, U.S. Ambassador Bridget Brink said the 100th vessel had passed through, with 3.7 million metric tons moved. By December 4, Kubrakov put the total at 200 ships and 7 million metric tons, nearly 5 million of it agricultural products, with 31 more ships loading in Odesa Oblast and another 30 under way.
It remained dangerous. A Russian missile hit a civilian cargo vessel in November, killing one crew member and injuring four. And exports overall lagged: Ukraine had shipped 8.72 million metric tons for the 2023/24 season by October 28, against 12.34 million tons at the same point a year earlier.
Sources
- Black Sea Grain Corridor: 33 Million Tons Transported (The Istanbul Post, citing Anadolu Agency)
- Container ship leaves Russian-blocked Odesa in temporary corridor (Business Day)
- Black Sea Humanitarian Corridor Update (Kyiv Independent)
- Black Sea Humanitarian Grain Corridor Working, Ukraine Says (Farm Policy News, University of Illinois)
- Russia's Withdrawal From the Black Sea Grain Initiative (UkraineWorld)
