War
German ship successfully crosses Ukrainian waters
The container ship “Joseph Schulte”, sailing under the flag of Hong Kong, leaves the port of Odessa. photo
© Uncredited/Ukraine’s Infrastructure Ministry Press Office/AP/dpa
Many ships are stuck in Ukraine. Moscow threatens to treat all shipping as hostile. Now a sea corridor set up by Ukraine has been tested for the first time.
Several hours after leaving the southern Ukrainian port Odessa the German cargo ship “Joseph Schulte” successfully crossed the Ukrainian part of the Black Sea.
“I can confirm that the ship has left Ukrainian waters,” said a spokeswoman for Bernhard Schulte Shipmanagement (BSM) in Hamburg in the evening at the request of the German Press Agency. According to the ship information service Marine Traffic, the freighter was sailing in Romanian waters not far from the town of Sfântu Gheorghe at the time.
The ship flying the Hong Kong flag had previously been stuck in Odessa for a year and a half because of the Russian war of aggression. The “Joseph Schulte” then left the port on Wednesday morning – and was the first ship to use a temporary corridor set up by Ukraine, which leads to and from the seaports of the attacked country. It can be used by merchant ships at their own risk. The crew, which consists exclusively of Ukrainian seamen, is doing well, the shipping company said. According to Ukrainian information, the freighter is heading for the Bosphorus.
According to the information, the ship transports more than 2,100 containers with around 30,000 tons of general cargo. It had moored in Odessa on February 23, 2022. A day later, Russia invaded the neighboring country and blocked the ports. Since then, more than 60 ships from many countries have shared the fate of the “Joseph Schulte”.