Ukrainian naval patrol boat zippered in the Black Sea, with its double-tube, 25mm machine gun locked on the horizon. The enemy Russia is nowhere to be seen, but it will always exist. In the command room, Captain Mykhailo and his crew scanned the screen, showing the color-coded area, marked the water of the Russian mine and the red arrows, tracking the drone wandering around the area.
The crew's mission is to defend the waters of Odesa, the largest Black Sea port in Ukraine, and to ensure they are safe. It has been working hard – clearing Russian mines during the day and shooting drones at night – but after more than a year of patrols with other Ukrainian naval vessels, they have succeeded.
The Russian Navy has been pushed far to the Ukrainian coast, bringing Ukrainian commercial transport bureau to pre-war levels. Captain Mike Harlow's fruit was realized on the horizon on Tuesday: the outline of a 740-foot, Panama-flagged ship, gliding towards a Ukrainian port filled with grains.
“Big ship. Very good,” Captain Mykhailo said, the condition for keeping in line with Ukrainian military rules is to use only his name and rank.
Kiev and Moscow promised a ceasefire in the Black Sea in separate U.S.-mediated talks last month, but Ukraine’s military and commercial achievements in these waters have led many Odesa to think about the question in Odesa: Is there anything Ukraine can get from such a truce?
Despite the promise of a ceasefire, these countries are still negotiating whether or how it will take effect. ODESA's naval officials and business owners have used delays to weigh the pros and cons of the deal. A ceasefire could get rid of ports from Russia’s drone and missile strikes, but it could also mean abandoning Ukraine’s strategic advantage at sea, perhaps the only area on the battlefield that has the upper hand.
“I don't want a ceasefire,” said Tariel Khajishvili, head of Ukrainian operating agent Novik LLC. “The only side of wanting a ceasefire is Russia because they no longer control the Black Sea.”
Ukraine’s suspicion will only be as the conditions for the armistice in Moscow deepen: lifting some Western economic sanctions and returning to previously unsupported deals, which allow Russia to control commercial vessels leaving Ukrainian ports for weapons inspections, two requirements, which are the initiators of KYIV.
Last week, Pavlo Palisa, senior military adviser to Ukraine's President Volodymyr Zelensky, told reporters last week: “Why are we making concessions now? We effectively shut down the Black Sea.”
There is also a deep distrust between the two countries. Both sides agreed in principle to temporarily block the crackdown on energy infrastructure, only accusing each other of violating regulations.
It is not clear whether the Black Sea ceasefire will take effect. Ukrainian military officials noted that Russia has avoided attacks on Ukrainian ports since last month's talks, aligning with one of Kiev's main requirements, but warned that it is too early to call it a truce.
Ukraine can now afford a ceasefire in the Black Sea, which shows a huge shift in fate there.
Shortly after Russia launched a full-scale invasion three years ago, its naval ships were 15 miles from the coast of Ukraine, close enough to open direct fire. Captain Mykhailo, 27, recalled a strike that “destroyed the reconnaissance station in the southern suburbs of Odesa”. In the city, residents filled sandbags to strengthen their defensive positions and prepare for the attack.
Russia never managed to violate Odesa. But its navy controlled enough Black Sea to block Ukrainian ports, stifle the country's economy and threaten global food security, as Ukraine is the main exporter of cereals.
In July 2022, an unbrokered transaction reopened the transport corridor for Ukrainian exports, but only under Russia’s agreement could Russia check whether all commercial ships were weapons. Kiev said Moscow deliberately slowed down inspections to kill trade. A year later, only twenty ships use corridors each month.
Russia withdrew from the deal in July 2023, complaining about the same economic sanctions that are now trying to lift and threatening to all commercial vessels to and from Ukraine.
To restart exports, Ukraine began a campaign to expel Russia’s Black Sea fleet, using maritime drones and missiles to destroy or damage more than a quarter of its main warships, according to the British Defense Intelligence Agency. The attack forced the Russian fleet to retreat to the eastern part of the ocean far from the Ukrainian coast, allowing Ukraine to obtain a new transportation corridor that embraced the coast before entering the territory of NATO members.
Captain Mykhailo said his patrol boat was a ship donated by the United States in 2021 – accompanied by commercial vessels sailing along the Ukrainian coast, “departing from the mines and providing security from Russian air strikes.”
Now, boats travel more in new corridors than during unsupported agreements. Black ocean food exports are also close to pre-war levels. Last year, Ukraine shipped 42 million tons of cereals and oil, accounting for about 80% of its pre-war volume, according to data compiled by Ukrainian investment firm Dragon Capital.
Against this backdrop, experts believe that Ukraine has little benefit in the Black Sea ceasefire.
Returning to unsupported agreements, as requested by Russia, “could reverse all successes of the Ukrainian corridor ensured by the Ukrainian military, especially with the reintroduction of ship inspections,” said Natalia Shpygotska, senior analyst at Dragon Capital. She added: “I can't see why Ukraine should accept it.” “This makes no sense.”
Experts say everything Ukraine may get from the ceasefire will end Russia's strike on its ports. These attacks damaged several ships and destroyed many containers and silos of grain. Yurii Vaskov, former Ukraine’s Deputy Infrastructure Minister, said the attacks peaked in the second half of 2023 and the export capacity of ODESA ports fell by 20%.
“For Ukraine, a ceasefire in the Black Sea mainly means stopping attacks on port infrastructure so that our cereal corridors can operate without damage,” said Captain Dmitro Plecuk, a spokesman for the Ukrainian Navy.
“There is nothing else in this agreement that Russia can offer us,” he said in an interview with ODESA.
However, the proposal was not found in the White House statement last month that announced a ceasefire in the Black Sea.
Andrii Klymenko, head of the Black Sea Strategy Institute, said he did not want the two sides to establish a maritime armistice, given their conflicting demands. He suspected Russia wanted to use a truce to move some of its ships back to the central Black Sea, which Kiev had warned would trigger a counterattack.
Back on Captain Mykhailo's ship, the ceasefire was as far away as ever. Iron box machine gun bullets were sitting on the deck ready to use. On Tuesday night, the crew cleared several of them, opened fire at Russian drones and divided them into Odessa and its suburbs.
“Ukrainian authorities said: “Unfortunately, we failed to put them down.”
“For me, nothing has changed.” “Fighting as usual.”
Daria Mitiuk,,,,, Oleksandr Chubko and Maria Varenikova Contribution report.
