Ukraine ‘offering Russia deal to halt attacks on civilian ships in Black Sea’

Ukraine has proposed a deal with Russia for both sides to halt their attacks on civilian ships in the Black Sea in an apparent attempt to reopen a crucial grain corridor, Reuters reports.Kyiv is said to have made the offer through a third party. Moscow has yet to respond, the news agency added. The busy waterway is a key export route for both Russia and Ukraine, used to transport grain and other vital foodstuffs worldwide.Since July Ukraine has effectively closed the route for commercial Russian shipping. Its drones have hit nearly 220 vessels in the Sea of Azov and Black Sea, including oil tankers, grain cargo ships and passenger ferries.The campaign has forced Russia to suspend shipping through a canal that connects the Caspian Sea with the Sea of Azov via a Russian river network. The route goes through the Kerch strait between occupied Crimea and Russia, and leads on to the Bosphorus strait in Turkey.During the same period, Russia has escalated its attacks on Ukraine’s southern ports, dealing a severe blow to the country’s agricultural sector. About 90% of grain and sunflower shipments leave from Odesa, and the neighbouring harbours of Chornomorsk and Pivdenne.Smoke rises from a ship damaged by a purported Russian attack in the Black Sea last month. Photograph: Ukrinform/ShutterstockIn July Russian drones killed 10 sailors soon after their Turkish-owned grain carrier, the Golden Leo, set off from Odesa. Many of the victims were from Syria and India. Another 16 port workers and sailors have died in other recent strikes.Kyiv’s reported overture appears to be pragmatic, allowing both sides to resume shipments that are crucial to international food security. It comes as the country’s harvest season begins and with shipping from Ukrainian ports at a virtual standstill.The offer also follows a report in the FT that the US vice-president, JD Vance, had asked Ukraine’s president Volodymyr Zelenskyy to cease some attacks on the Russian Black Sea port of Novorossiysk.In a phone call on 31 July, Vance complained that Ukrainian strikes on tankers carrying oil from Kazakhstan were hurting US companies and destabilising oil prices. He told Zelenskyy to stop them, the newspaper said, citing unnamed Ukrainian officials.Zelenskyy’s office has not commented, but Kyiv is in the middle of delicate negotiations with the Trump administration. It is seeking US-manufactured Patriot interceptors to defend Ukrainian cities from rampant Russian ballistic missile and drone swarms.Since the phone call, Ukraine’s unmanned systems forces have not attacked ships carrying oil from Kazakhstan via the Caspian Pipeline Consortium terminal. But they have continued to pound other targets in Novorossiysk, which is home to Russia’s Black Sea naval fleet.On Wednesday Zelenskyy hailed a “massive” combined attack on the port, featuring rockets, jets and sea drones. He said Ukraine had taken out Russian warships, including two frigates, a large landing ship, a corvette and other vessels. They had been “hiding” in Novorossiysk Bay, he wrote on Telegram.Other targets included two major grain export terminals, it was reported. Russian officials said three people, including a child, were killed. “It is entirely justified that Ukraine is responding to Russia’s war, and it is Russia that can and must bring this war to an end,” Zelenskyy posted.The two sides have previously signed an agreement, brokered by Turkey and the UN, to stop maritime attacks. The Black Sea grain initiative lasted from July 2022 to July 2023. It ended when the Kremlin refused to renew it, complaining that western sanctions were damaging Russia’s agricultural sector.Ukraine subsequently reopened the route unilaterally, using sea drones to sink Russian ships using the north-west part of the Black Sea. Most vessels in Russia’s Black Sea fleet were forced to relocate from the exposed occupied Crimean port of Sevastopol to Novorossiysk.