A cargo ship carrying grain has left Ukraine’s Black Sea port of Chornomorsk for the first time since the grain deal broke up, an industry source told Reuters on Tuesday.

This is a serious event and a test of Ukraine’s ability to unlock its seaports for grain export.

Last month, Ukraine announced a “humanitarian corridor” in the Black Sea for ships stuck in its ports since the start of the war (February 2022) and to bypass the de facto blockade imposed by Russia after Moscow abandoned a deal that allowed Kyiv export grain by sea.

Cargo ships Resilient Africa and Aroyat arrived in Ukraine on Saturday and were supposed to depart after loading almost 20,000 tons of wheat for Africa and Asia.

The Reuters source did not name the ship that departed, but the MarineTraffic database showed that only the Aroyat was still docked in Chornomorsk, a port south of Odesa, on Tuesday morning.

Moscow has often carried out strikes with drones and missiles on the infrastructure of Ukrainian grain exports, most recently on port facilities on the Danube on the border with Romania.

Three Odesa seaports, including Chornomorsk, shipped tens of millions of tons of grain during the Russian invasion under a UN-brokered deal from which Moscow withdrew in July this year.

Five of the few ships stuck in Odessa left the port, using a temporary “humanitarian corridor” that runs along the western Black Sea coast past Romania and Bulgaria.

The Black Sea Grain Agreement was signed by the UN and Turkey in July 2022 to combat the global food crisis exacerbated by Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. Ukraine and Russia are among the world’s leading grain exporters.

A majority of EU countries supported the need to maintain the bloc’s unity on Ukrainian agricultural trade on Monday, Spain’s agriculture minister said after a meeting in Brussels, adding that he opposed unilateral measures.

A dispute over trade in agricultural products on Monday caused a rift between Kyiv and some of its strongest allies in the European Union after the three member states imposed unilateral measures to limit imports from Ukraine.

Poland, Slovakia and Hungary announced import restrictions on Friday after the European Commission decided not to extend the ban on the sale of Ukrainian agricultural products to five of Ukraine’s neighboring countries, including Romania and Bulgaria.

Prime Minister Marcel Cholaku announced Monday that he will ask the ministers of agriculture and the economy for a joint order to extend the ban on Ukrainian grain imports for 30 days, noting that he is awaiting a licensing proposal from the prime minister. Minister of Ukraine.

Hundreds of Bulgarian farmers protested on Monday at the Ruse-George and Vidin-Kalafat border crossing points against the decision of the European Commission to cancel the ban on the import of Ukrainian grain to five EU countries neighboring Ukraine.

Ukraine announced on Monday that it will file a complaint with the World Trade Organization regarding the ban on grain imports from that country to Poland, Hungary and Slovakia.