July 22 Sees No Civilian Traffic Through the Grain Corridor

Due to relentless Russian attacks on civilian shipping, not a single civilian vessel passed through the grain corridor on July 22.

Ukraine’s Foreign Minister Andrii Sybiha announced this.

According to Sybiha, over the past several days, Russia has attacked at least three civilian cargo vessels. As a result of these strikes, dozens of crew members were killed or injured.

The Russians are using both naval aviation and Geran-Seeker loitering munitions (kamikaze drones) to launch the attacks.

As a result, grain-carrying vessels have been unable to pass through the grain corridor at the height of the harvest season. Sybiha described the attacks as deliberate economic and humanitarian terror.

“If this terror continues, millions of families in Africa, Asia, the Middle East, and Latin America could face rising food prices and hunger,” the Minister emphasized.

Ukraine has requested an emergency meeting of the UN Security Council on July 27. Kyiv is calling on all countries – especially those already affected by these attacks – to immediately demand that Russia stop its assaults on freedom of navigation in the Black Sea.

According to Sybiha, no country has the right to condemn the world to hunger.

Recently, Denys Marchuk, Deputy Chairman of the Ukrainian Agri Council, told Suspilne in an interview that if operations along the maritime corridor are not restored in the coming months, Ukraine’s agricultural sector could face a shortage of working capital, insufficient grain storage capacity, and the risk of bankruptcy for some agricultural enterprises.

According to Marchuk, very few new vessels are currently calling at the ports of Greater Odesa. Most of the ships now loading are those that arrived earlier and already had freight contracts in place.

Ukraine had planned to export more than 2.5 million tonnes of grain by sea in July. However, actual exports have so far reached only just over 1 million tonnes.

As previously reported, the Liberia-flagged LPG tanker Gas Lisbon caught fire off the coast of Romania while en route to the Ukrainian port of Reni.