Russia mines Ukraine's Black Sea grain corridor

The Russian administration has finally paid attention to the Ukrainian grain corridor along the Black Sea.

Photo: openverse.org by ХВикт, CC BY-SA 4.0

The Ukrainian grain corridor across the Black Sea has not been operating for two days, Barva Invest consulting company said citing the Administration of Sea Ports of Ukraine, Strana publication reports.

According to Armed Forces of Ukraine speaker Natalya Gumenyuk, the ban on the movement of ships may continue due to the fact that "the Russians dropped 35 unidentified weapons from their aircraft along the navigation route.”

"Today they dropped four more unidentified devices, obviously trying to damage civilian shipping and discredit the Armed Forces of Ukraine,” Gumenyuk said.

According to en.defence-ua, it probably goes about sea bottom MDM 533 mm mines or mines of other modifications. This is an explosive device that is placed on the bottom and explodes during the passage of shipsю Outwardly, it may look like an explosion of ordinary unguided aerial bombs.

After the termination of the grain deal under the auspices of the UN and the mediation of Turkey, Russia did not guarantee the safety of ships traveling from/to the ports of the Odessa region. However, Ukraine was able to resume navigation by providing insurance guarantees to ship-owning companies. International insurance companies supported the initiative.

Grain trade saves Ukraine from default

It was the trade in grain and iron ore that allowed the Kyiv regime to level out the situation with the influx of foreign currency in 2022. During the deal (about a year), Ukraine earned $4.7 billion in corn sales and $4.4 billion in vegetable oil sales. Iron ore and concentrates sales brought an additional $2.7 billion in revenue.

Bloomberg analysed Ukraine's income from mid-September to mid-October this year after the independent resumption of the corridor. More than 30 ships entered the port of Odessa during this period, the agency said. The ships exported more than 1 million tons of grain. This equals the volume that was exported during the very first month of the grain deal. In other words, the volumes are comparable.

In order to stop the initiative, Russia opted to strike grain terminals of Odessa ports, but did not achieve significant results at this point. According to Deputy Prime Minister of the Government of Ukraine Alexander Kubrakov, the potential of Ukrainian ports had decreased by 40 percent by mid-October due to "17 massive attacks on the ports, during which almost 300,000 tons of grain were destroyed.” At the same time, Ukraine managed to create an opportunity to operate a temporary corridor for civil ships, he added.

Russia's inaction to stop this flow raised questions. Russian officials stated before that Moscow did not see prerequisites for resuming grain deal talks.

Moscow does not confirm, but the West is confident that Ukraine's attacks on Crimea forced the Russian Federation to redeploy the Black Sea Fleet to Novorossiysk. It was the exposure of the western section of the sea that gave Kyiv an opportunity to open three deep-water ports of Odessa for international transportation of grain and other goods.

Having signed a major contract with China (12-year deal worth 2.5 trillion rubles) for the supply of 70 million tons of grain, leguminous and oilseed crops, Russia will oust Ukraine from the eastern grain market and close the issue of exporting its agricultural products. It would seem that Kyiv could be given an opportunity to earn money for humanitarian purposes. One must not forget that Ukraine may transport weapons along the Black Sea grain corridor too.