Ukraine announced on Wednesday that a cargo vessel had exited its southern port of Odesa along a new maritime corridor.
This came despite an earlier warning from Russia it could target vessels using Ukrainian ports.
“The first vessel is moving along the temporary corridors established for civilian vessels to and from Black Sea ports,” Ukraine’s Infrastructure Minister Oleksandr Kubrakov said in a statement.
“Ukraine proposed this route in its appeal to the International Maritime Organization (IMO),” Kubrakov added.
He also underlined that the corridor will be primarily used to evacuate ships that were in the Ukrainian ports of Chornomorsk, Odesa, and Pivdenny at the time of the full-scale invasion by the Russian Federation.
The minister named the vessel the Hong Kong-flagged Joseph Schulte, adding that it had left the port of Odesa, one of three transit hubs that participated in the now-scrapped grain deal.
Russia issued its maritime threat after scuppering a key deal last month — brokered by the UN and Turkey — that guaranteed safe passage for grain exports from three Ukrainian ports.
