It is important for Ukraine to obtain security guarantees from Turkey, which would allow it to unblock its Black Sea ports. The government should also work more actively with Ukraine’s Western partners on international platforms to ensure freedom of navigation in the region.
Ukraine’s former minister of infrastructure Volodymyr Omelian expressed this opinion, the CFTS portal reports, citing the Obozrevatel publication.
"Russia is engaging in state piracy. It is the ‘Black Sea’s Somalia,’ a country that openly uses the destruction of peaceful civilian vessels for blackmail to achieve some of its geopolitical goals. However, we see that this blackmail is no longer working", Omelian said.
"At this stage, it would be sufficient for Turkey, as a country, simply to say that it is tired of this and send 1-2 of its frigates to escort ships through the corridor. I do not think Russia would have dared to attack Turkish warships because it would be a direct attack on NATO. We are really seeing very interesting and fast-changing dynamics in Turkey's relations with the West, and I would not mind if the Black Sea also became NATO’s inland sea," Omelian said.
He added Ukraine should pay more attention to this issue and work more actively with its partners, including on international platforms.
"I really hoped that this issue would be raised at the London Peace Conference. However, it seems to me that the government significantly underperformed at this event despite its victorious statements because we heard that the range of military or so-called war-related insurance would be expanded to help rebuild Ukraine, but I did not hear any progress in the context of maritime trade. Ukraine cannot resolve this issue alone. There should be a complex mechanism for coordinating with our allies to reinsure such risks. I think that the chances of this being resolved are sufficiently high," the former minister of infrastructure said.
Several experts have also expressed the opinion that the Turkish navy could be useful in securing the freedom of merchant shipping in the Black Sea.
In contrast, Ukraine's Foreign Affairs Minister Dmytro Kuleba is still talking about another option concerning purely agricultural products and involving the transportation of grain by "other modalities." Kuleba talks about freedom of navigation in the Black Sea only in the context of Ukraine's complete liberation of Ukraine from the Russian occupiers, the return of the Crimea, and the end of the war.
Meanwhile, the Russians have demonstratively attacked grain terminals in the ports of Odesa and Chornomorsk after withdrawing from the grain deal.
