ZThe German freighter Joseph Schulte was en route on the Black Sea for two days before finally being able to dock in the safe port of Istanbul on Friday morning. Nothing is known of incidents on the journey, said the spokeswoman for the Hamburg shipping company Schulte Group of the German Press Agency.
The ship is the first to leave the port of Odessa, Ukraine, since mid-July. The container freighter crossed Ukrainian, Romanian and Turkish waters via a “humanitarian corridor” set up by Kiev. Russia has not yet commented on whether it recognizes the corridors. According to Kiev, they are primarily intended to enable ships to exit that would have been in Ukrainian ports at the beginning of the war against Ukraine in February 2022.
Sea corridors for merchant ships
Joseph Schulte had also not moved for almost a year and a half. According to the shipping company, the freighter has been in the port of Odessa since February 23, 2022. A day later, Russia attacked Ukraine. Because of the war, it was not possible to move the ship, said a spokesman for the shipping company. A regular crew remained on board the 300 meter long freighter. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyj called the voyage of the Joseph Schulte on Platform X, formerly Twitter, an “important step towards restoring freedom of navigation in the Black Sea”.
Ukraine announced last week that it would set up maritime corridors for merchant ships after Russia failed to renew the grain deal in July. Thanks to the agreement negotiated by Turkey and the United Nations, Ukraine was able to export its grain across the Black Sea despite the war.
Shortly after the agreement expired, Moscow said it considered all ships bound for Ukraine as potential military transport. In the case of the German freighter flying the Hong Kong flag, the shipping company apparently secured itself in many directions. The company thanked “various local stakeholders,” the International Maritime Organization, Hong Kong and others who made the ship’s safe passage possible.
Silence from Ankara
A few days before the Joseph Schulte left port, Russian soldiers fired warning shots at a Turkish freighter that was en route to the Ukrainian port of Izmail. A video released by the Russian Ministry of Defense shows a naval unit boarding the Palau-flagged Şükrü Okan, questioning the crew and checking their documents.
For a long time, nothing was heard from Ankara about the incident from last weekend. The Center for Combating Disinformation of the Turkish Press Office only spoke up on Platform X on Thursday. Accordingly, Turkey “warned” Russia against further actions that could further aggravate the situation in the Black Sea.
The opposition had criticized Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan for his poor information policy. Kemal Kılıçdaroğlu wrote on the X platform that the Turks only found out about the incident after the video was published by the Russian side. “The palace state has not commented on the matter. Why not?” asked the opposition leader.
The press office gave an indirect answer to this. “Even though the owner of the ship named Şükrü Okan is a Turk, the ship is not a Turkish flag ship,” the post continues.
Turkey maintains good connections with both Kiev and Moscow and is trying to play a mediating role in the war. Russian President Vladimir Putin is expected to visit in August, and Turkey is supplying arms to Ukraine. Before the Russian attack, Ankara had signed an agreement with Kiev to build four corvettes for the Ukrainian Navy. Once completed, Hetman Ivan Mazepa is set to become the flagship of the Ukrainian Navy. The launch took place last autumn. On Friday, Ukrainian media reported that the keel laying of a second corvette took place in Istanbul.
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