Two more ships pass through Black Sea corridor, says Zelenskiy

September 2 (Reuters) – Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said on Saturday that two more ships had passed through a “temporary” shipping corridor in the Black Sea established since Russia withdrew from a U.S.-backed grain export deal. UN in July.

“Two ships have successfully passed through our temporary ‘grain corridor’,” Zelenskiy posted on X, formerly known as Twitter.

The president did not identify the ships involved or say when they had completed their voyage. Authorities said Friday that two vessels had cleared the corridor, bringing the number of vessels that have used it to four.

Zelenskiy said Ukraine was “restoring true freedom of navigation in the Black Sea. Freedom requires determination.”

On Friday, a Ukrainian deputy prime minister said two ships had passed through the corridor from the port of Pivdenny: one flying the Liberian flag and the other flying the Marshall Islands flag. The ships carried pig iron and iron concentrate.

Russia has blocked Ukrainian ports since it invaded its neighbor in February 2022 and threatened to treat all ships as possible military targets after withdrawing from the UN-backed deal.

In response, Ukraine announced a “humanitarian corridor” that runs along the western Black Sea coast, close to Romania and Bulgaria.

The grain deal had allowed Ukraine, a major agricultural exporter, to ship tens of millions of metric tons of produce to other countries during Russia’s invasion.

Russian President Vladimir Putin we’ll meet His Turkish counterpart Tayyip Erdogan will meet in the Black Sea resort of Sochi on Monday as Ankara and the United Nations seek to revive the grain export deal.

Russia left the deal in July after it had been in place for a year, complaining that its own exports of food and fertilizer were facing obstacles and that not enough Ukrainian grain was reaching countries in need.

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