First Ship To Use Ukraine's Alternative NATO Grain Route Exits Black Sea

The Hong Kong-flagged Joseph Schulte is the first vessel to have left Ukrainian ports which has successfully utilized a NATO-backed alternate corridor to exit the Black Sea in a direct challenge to Russian attempts at blocking Ukraine's access to the Black Sea. 

Maritime tracking sites show that it carefully avoided international waters currently patrolled by Russian warships, opting instead to stick to a western route in waters controlled by NATO members Romania and Bulgaria. 

The vessel had been stuck at the port of Odessa throughout the entirety of the war up till this week, which means it moved nowhere for one-and-a-half years.

The US, Ukraine, and Romania have been in recent high-level security meetings in order to agree upon an alternative shipping route, after Russia has stepped up bombardment of Ukraine's ports and grain silos, including along the Danube which separates Ukraine and Romania.

Regional media has indicated the Joseph Schulte will anchor at Ambarli to the south off Istanbul. Turkey is still hoping to revive the Black Sea Grain Initiative deal which Moscow recently failed to renew, and pulled out of. This means Turkish officials are unlikely to wholeheartedly support the US-NATO plan at establishing a Romania-Bulgaria route.

"Our efforts are focused on making the grain corridor deal active again," an unnamed defense official told a Turkish broadcaster. "We are not working on other solutions."

One potential key transit point for Ukrainian grain in the new plan is the Romanian Black Sea port of Constanta. The country's prime minister, Marcel Ciolacu, in a Friday statement expressed home that up to 60% of Ukrainian grain exports could pass through Romania - though admitted this is ambitious. The idea is that vessels would leave Ukrainian ports and enter Romanian ones and from there be shipped to outside destinations.

This week an unnamed US official told The Wall Street Journal that the Biden administration "is considering all potential options, including military solutions" to ensure the safety of ships entering Ukraine's ports on the Danube. At the same time Russia has been relentless in its attacks as well as Black Sea patrols for 'illicit' ships.