Ukraine to set up temporary shipping route

Ukraine is setting up a temporary shipping route to maintain grain shipments after Russia quit a deal allowing Ukrainian exports via a UN-backed safe corridor in the Black Sea, Kyiv said on Wednesday.

Russia attacked Ukraine's Black Sea Odesa port for the second consecutive night on Tuesday after quitting the deal on Monday, which included Moscow revoking guarantees for safe navigation.

In an official letter letter dated July 18 submitted to UN shipping agency, the International Maritime Organization (IMO), Ukraine on Wednesday said it had "decided to establish on a temporary basis a recommended maritime route".

"Its goal is to facilitate the unblocking of international shipping in the north-western part of the Black Sea," Vasyl Shkurakov, Ukraine's acting minister for communities, territories and infrastructure development, said in the letter.

Ukraine added in the letter that it would establish shipping traffic routes close to the waters around Chornomorsk, Odesa, Pivdennyi, the three Ukrainian ports that were part of the corridor, leading up to the territorial waters and the exclusive maritime economic zone of Romania.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy has said the Black Sea grain deal could continue without Russian participation, and Ukraine is working on options to keep its commitments on food supplies.

There are a "number of ideas being floated" to help get Ukrainian and Russian grain and fertilizer to global markets, the United Nations said on Tuesday.

Ukraine added in the letter to the IMO that it had created a "mechanism" to provide "guarantees of compensation for damage" to charterers, ship operators and owners of vessels "caused as a result of the armed aggression of the Russian Federation".

It said this would be offered while the commercial ships were in Ukraine's territorial waters or when such vessels were heading to or from the country's open sea ports for cargo transportation.