MOSCOW, September 3. /TASS/. President of Ukraine Vladimir Zelensky confirmed the passage of two more ships through a temporary corridor in the Black Sea.

" Two more vessels have successfully passed via our temporary Black Sea grain corridor," he wrote on the social platform X (formerly known as Twitter).

The first ship - container ship Joseph Schulte under the flag of Hong Kong - left the port of Odessa on August 16 along the temporary corridor announced by Kiev.

On August 10, the Ukrainian navy announced "temporary corridors" in the Black Sea for merchant ships going to or from the ports of Chernomorsk, Odessa and Yuzhny. However, Kiev warned that a military threat and mine danger remained on the route and, therefore, only those ships whose owners and captains "officially confirm their readiness to sail in these conditions" are being allowed to pass.

There were reports that the routes would be used primarily to enable civilian ships stuck at dock in these Ukrainian ports since late February 2022 to depart.

On July 17, Russia refused to continue its participation in the grain deal, which was reached a year ago to ensure safe exports of Ukrainian grain across the Black Sea. The deal also provided for creating conditions for exporting farming products and fertilizers from Russia. Moscow explained its withdrawal from the deal by the non-implementation of the part of the deal related to Russian exports to the global market.

Later, the Russian defense ministry warned that following the termination of the grain deal from midnight on July 20, Moscow will view all ships sailing across the Black Sea to Ukrainian ports as shipping military cargoes and their flag countries will be considered as involved in the Ukrainian conflict on Kiev’s side. Apart from that, several maritime areas in the northwestern and southeastern parts of the Black Sea international waters were declared temporarily dangerous for navigation.