Russia is losing the battle for the Black Sea

On September 19th Ukrainian military and civilian shipping officers huddled in a secret control room to watch the Resilient Africa as it left Odessa’s Chornomorsk port. As this was the first vessel to leave using Ukraine’s new emergency shipping corridor, established after the collapse of a UN-brokered grain deal, tensions were high. Russia had warned that it could open fire on ships using the corridor. Emergency services were on standby. “We readied ourselves for any scenario,” says one of those present in the room. “We were really quite nervous.” In the event, the ship sailed without incident, hugging 150km of Ukrainian coastline before entering first Romanian, then Bulgarian territorial waters, and continuing on through the Bosporus to its destination, the Israeli port of Haifa.