KYIV: Shipowners have temporarily suspended vessel arrivals at Ukraine’s Black Sea ports for agricultural exports after a recent surge in Russian attacks on ports and merchant shipping, the country’s agriculture minister said. Ukraine has lost about a third of its capacity to export grain via the Black Sea ports due to Russian missile and drone attacks, traders and analysts have said. “As of today, the entry of ships has been suspended. This is a decision taken by the shipowners.

Ukrainian attacks in and around the Sea of Azov have sharply reduced Russia's grain exports at the start of the new agricultural season, leaving millions of tons of grain stranded…

It used to be that Russia’s and Ukraine’s military decision-makers mostly left civilian ships alone and at least didn’t go out of their way to attack them. That changed over the…