July 23 (Reuters) – Shipowners have temporarily suspended vessel arrivals at Ukraine’s Black Sea ports for agricultural exports after a recent surge in Russian attacks on ports \u200cand merchant shipping, the country’s agriculture minister said.<\/p>\n
Ukraine has lost about a third of \u200cits capacity to export grain via the Black Sea ports due to Russian missile and drone attacks, traders and \u200banalysts have said.<\/p>\n
“As of today, the entry of ships has been suspended. This is a decision taken by the shipowners. Ukraine, as a state, has not imposed any restrictions,” Interfax-Ukraine cited Taras Vysotskyi as saying on Wednesday.<\/p>\n
Vysotskyi added that alternative routes and infrastructure were currently underutilised, Interfax-Ukraine said.<\/p>\n
Ukraine \u200chas been exporting much of its \u2060grain through its Black Sea shipping corridor since 2023, following Russia’s withdrawal from a deal that had guaranteed safe passage for agricultural exports after \u2060its full-scale invasion of its neighbour in 2022.<\/p>\n
But Russian attacks on Ukraine’s deepwater ports and international vessels have intensified in recent weeks. Brokers have said shipowners are refusing to enter Ukrainian ports because \u200bof \u200bsharply increased war-risk concerns, while traders have paused purchases.<\/p>\n
A \u200bRussian missile strike on a ship \u200ccarrying corn near Odesa on Sunday killed nine crew members from India and Syria and a Ukrainian maritime pilot, Ukrainian authorities said.<\/p>\n
UKRAINE REQUESTS URGENT UN SECURITY COUNCIL MEETING<\/p>\n
Ukraine’s acting foreign minister, Andrii Sybiha, said late on Wednesday that at least three civilian cargo ships had been attacked by Russia in the past few days.<\/p>\n
“Today, zero vessels passed through Ukraine’s Black Sea maritime \u200ccorridor – right at peak harvest. This is deliberate economic \u200band humanitarian terror,” Sybiha said in a post on \u200bX, adding that Ukraine had requested \u200ban urgent United Nations Security Council meeting for Monday.<\/p>\n
Moscow says it is \u200chitting port infrastructure and vessels that support \u200bthe Ukrainian military.<\/p>\n
Ukraine is also \u200bstepping up attacks on vessels in the Sea of Azov and the Black Sea, in an expanding campaign aimed at isolating Russia-occupied Crimea and undermining Moscow’s key revenue \u200bsources.<\/p>\n
On Wednesday, Russia introduced a \u200ctemporary nighttime ban on vessel movements in and out of Novorossiysk port, its \u200bbiggest port by volume that handles up to one third of its grain \u200bexports.<\/p>\n
(Reporting by Anna Pruchnicka; Editing by Emelia Sithole-Matarise)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"July 23 (Reuters) – Shipowners have temporarily suspended vessel arrivals at Ukraine’s Black Sea ports for agricultural exports…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":20019,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[7011,7661,1138,7660,531,7663,322,26,7662],"class_list":["post-20018","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-news","tag-agricultural-exports","tag-agriculture-minister","tag-black-sea","tag-deepwater-ports","tag-drone-attacks","tag-interfax-ukraine","tag-russian-missile","tag-ukraine","tag-vessel-arrivals"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ukraine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20018","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ukraine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ukraine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ukraine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ukraine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=20018"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ukraine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20018\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ukraine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/20019"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ukraine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=20018"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ukraine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=20018"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ukraine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=20018"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}