The Joseph Schulte was moored at the quay in Odesa for eighteen months. The container ship, flying the flag of Hong Kong, was moored in the Ukrainian port on February 23, 2022, just hours before Russia invaded its neighbor with tens of thousands of soldiers, tanks and fighter planes. On Wednesday morning, the three hundred meter long container ship finally left Odesa for a not harmless journey along the western coastal waters of the Black Sea. Russian warships and floating naval mines pose the greatest dangers.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky mentioned the event an ‘important step towards restoring freedom of navigation in the Black Sea’. On Wednesday evening, the owners reported that the ship had left Ukrainian waters.
The Joseph Schulte, jointly owned by a Chinese bank – whose name has not been disclosed – and Germany’s Bernhard Schulte Shipmanagement (BSM), is the first merchant vessel to leave Ukraine since Moscow warned a month ago that any ship traveling to or from a Ukrainian port is considered a military target. The US government issued a warning at the end of July that Russia was preparing for attacks on civilian shipping in the Black Sea.
On the way to Istanbul
Thursday afternoon the Joseph Schulte sailed according to MarineTraffic’s ship tracker in the territorial waters of Bulgaria. The ship was expected in Istanbul on Thursday evening, according to a BSM spokesman. Despite earlier threats against ships near Ukrainian ports, the Russian government had not reported the crossing of the Sino-German container ship until Thursday afternoon.
According to the Ukrainian Minister of Infrastructure Oleksandr Kubrakov, the Joseph Schulte, with more than 2,000 containers on board, carries a load of more than 30,000 tonnes, including food products. After leaving the port of Odesa, the container ship did not send any signals for hours, in order to remain out of sight as much as possible. According to the shipowner, the ship sails with an all-Ukrainian crew.
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A week ago, the Ukrainian navy announced that it would establish a temporary corridor for merchant ships to leave Ukraine’s Black Sea ports of Pivdennji, Odesa and Chornomorsk. At least sixty freighters are still moored there that could not leave Ukraine after the large-scale Russian invasion, said John Stawpert of the International Chamber of Shipping, the world’s largest shipping company association, against the American news agency AP. According to Stawpert, the lack of a Russian response to the ship’s departure is likely due to the warm ties between Beijing and Moscow. He considers it unlikely that more ships will follow.
Warning shots
Since Russia canceled the grain deal in mid-July, and with it the corridors that allowed ships to carry Ukrainian agricultural products as grain, the Black Sea has been a dangerous place for commercial shipping. To reinforce its threats against international maritime traffic, a Russian patrol ship fired last Sunday fired warning shots with machine guns on the Turkish freighter Sukru Okan, in international waters off the coast of Bulgaria, bound for the Ukrainian port of Izmajil. Russian soldiers then boarded the cargo ship, which sails under the flag of Palau, from a Ka-29 attack helicopter. After “the inspection group had done its job,” the Russian Defense Ministry reported afterwards, the Sukru Okan was allowed to continue its journey.
President Zelensky’s adviser Mikhailo Podoljak mentioned the incident ‘a clear violation of international maritime law’ and ‘piracy’.
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With the opening of a new, temporary corridor, Kyiv hopes to continue exporting agricultural products. But even now that the first ship seems to have successfully departed, Russian threats make it uncertain whether Ukraine will succeed in its strategy. The ships are difficult to insure. The Ukrainian government has assured the International Maritime Organization (IMO) that it will pay for any damage to commercial ships in the corridor.
Grain Agreement
Russian threats against merchant ships in the Black Sea began last month right after the end of the so-called grain deal, which Moscow refused to renew. That agreement guaranteed free passage for ships carrying Ukrainian agricultural products through a corridor across the Black Sea for months. Moscow announced last month that it would rejoin the deal once barriers to Russian food and fertilizer exports are removed. This includes international sanctions against Moscow.
After the end of the grain deal, Ukraine is trying to export its agricultural products through the Danube ports of Reni and Izmajil, on the border with Romania. From there, ships sail ‘inland’ via the Danube-Black Sea Canal to the Romanian port city of Constanta, after which the cargo can resume its way across the Black Sea. But since Russia withdrew the grain deal, it has been conducting airstrikes for days on Ukraine’s agricultural storage facilities, not just in Odesa. Reni and Izmajil were also bombarded several times with Russian attack drones. Also this week, the storage locations along the Danube were attacked from the air.
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