A second merchant ship leaves the Ukrainian port of Odessa after Russia’s withdrawal from the grain deal

A second container ship sailed through a temporary Black Sea corridor set up by Ukraine’s government on Saturday after Russia halted a wartime deal aimed at ensuring safe grain exports from the invaded country’s ports.

The Primus, a Liberian-flagged bulk carrier, left the port of Odessa on Saturday morning and was headed south towards the Bulgarian port of Varna, according to data from maritime traffic monitoring sites. Ukrainian lawmaker Oleksii Goncharenko also posted on his Telegram channel a photo of the ship leaving the port.

The departure of the Primus came 10 days after the launch of another container ship that had been docked in Odessa since before the full-scale Russian invasion of its neighbor, the Hong Kong-flagged Joseph Schulte. Analysts had surmised that China’s political closeness to Russia might have facilitated the passage of that ship and raised questions about whether ships registered elsewhere would follow suit.

The provisional corridor, which Kiev has asked the International Maritime Organization to ratify, was opened on August 10 when US and Ukrainian officials warned of possible Russian attacks on civilian ships in the Black Sea. Sea mines also make the voyage risky and ship insurance costs are likely to be high for operators.

Russia withdrew from the UN-brokered grain deal on July 17, with Kremlin officials arguing that their demands to facilitate Russian shipments of food and fertilizer had not been met. The decision came hours after a pre-dawn attack on a bridge connecting the Crimean peninsula to Russia killed two people and dealt an embarrassing blow to the Kremlin.

Although Russian officials insisted there was no link between the stretch and the decision to exit the deal, they described a missile and drone attack on Odessa the day after Moscow tore up the safe shipping deal in retaliation for the damaged bridge.