On Saturday morning, the bulk carrier Primus, under the flag of Liberia, left the port of Odesa, where it arrived on February 20 from the Greek port of Perama under the name Polarstar, and is moving in the direction of the Bulgarian port of Varna, the MarineTraffic resource said.

MP Oleksiy Honcharenko posted a photo of the cargo ship that left Odesa on his Telegram channel.

The bulk carrier Primus became the second vessel, after the container ship Josef Schulte under the flag of Hong Kong, to leave the port of Odesa after the start of a full-scale Russian invasion outside the grain corridor. Joseph Schulte, as the he Ministry of Communities, Territories and Infrastructure Development (Ministry of Restoration) said, on August 16 used the temporary corridor established by the Ukrainian Navy for civilian vessels to/from the Black Sea ports, and on August 18 arrived in Turkey with more than 30,000 tonnes of cargo (2,114 containers).

It was noted that the corridor, first of all, will be used for the evacuation of ships that are in the Ukrainian ports of Chornomorsk, Odesa and Pivdenny at the time of the full-scale invasion of the Russian Federation. According to the navigation instruction of the Navy of the Armed Forces of Ukraine No. 6, temporary routes for the movement of civilian vessels to/from the Black Sea ports of Ukraine began to operate from August 8, 2023.

According to the Administration of Seaports of Ukraine, as of August 23, six vessels with 262,000 tonnes of cargo remained blocked in the ports of Velyka Odesa.

The bulk carrier Primus with a deadweight of 32,600 tonnes and a gross tonnage of 19,900 tonnes, according to the editor-in-chief of BlackSeaNews and the head of the Monitoring Group on Sanctions and Freedom of Navigation, changed ownership on July 12 this year during its stay in Odesa: instead of the Greek Erma Marine SA, it became Nova Polar from Singapore. Also, instead of the Greek operator Seastar Chartering, it became Blumenthal Asia, also from Singapore.