Ukraine announced on Thursday the opening of temporary corridors in the Black Sea to allow the transportation of grain, despite Russia's warning that the ships could be targeted by Russian forces.

"Temporary lanes have been announced for commercial ships entering and leaving Ukrainian seaports on the Black Sea," the Ukrainian navy announced in a statement, quoted by Lusa.

"The corridors have been open since midnight," navy spokesman Oleg Tchalyk told the French news agency AFP, without specifying for how long. It was not immediately clear whether any ships had already left the Ukrainian coast. According to Oleg Tchalyk, all ships traveling in the Black Sea from Ukrainian ports "will be equipped with surveillance cameras" in order to make the journey "as transparent as possible".

The ships exporting Ukrainian grain "pose no military threat", the spokesman told AFP. In mid-July, Russia ended the agreement that had allowed Ukrainian grain to leave the country's southern ports since last summer. The grain had been held up in the ports due to the blockade imposed by Russia as part of the war it started against the neighboring country on February 24, 2022.

On July 19, Moscow warned that any ship using Ukrainian ports would be considered a potential target. Kiev reacted the next day, saying that the same would apply to Russian ships. Since then, the number of attacks in the Black Sea has increased on both sides, and the Russian army has repeatedly attacked Odessa, an important port in southern Ukraine, as well as the river ports of Izmaïl and Reni.

Kiev denounced the attacks as a means of hindering grain exports. The disruption to exports of cereals and other agricultural products caused by the war has led to fears of global insecurity. Before the war, Ukraine and Russia together supplied 28% of the wheat consumed in the world, 29% of barley, 15% of corn and 75% of sunflower oil, according to the British magazine The Economist.

In July 2022, the United Nations signed agreements with Russia and Ukraine, which also involved Turkey, to allow grain stuck in Ukrainian ports to be exported. A year later, Moscow refused to renew the agreements on the grounds that Western sanctions made it impossible to enforce one of the terms, which was the export of Russian products, including fertilizers.

According to the UN, the agreement made it possible to export "more than 32 million tons of food products from three Ukrainian Black Sea ports to 45 countries on three continents".