Turkey's coast guard began refusing passage through the Dardanelles to commercial vessels bound for Novorossiysk and Odessa on August 8, Bloomberg reported citing sources; the move followed repeated drone attacks on Turkish-owned cargo ships and adds a new chokepoint risk to Black Sea grain and commodity routes already disrupted by the Russia-Ukraine war

Drones struck two Turkish-owned cargo ships, Nadezhda and Yasar, near Russia's Novorossiysk port on the night of August 3, injuring three crew members; the captain of the Nadezhda attributed the attack to Ukraine and said six or seven drones were used; Turkey's Foreign Ministry expressed 'serious concern' and called on both Russia and Ukraine to implement 'concrete measures' for navigational safety, deliberately not naming Ukraine

An LPG tanker, the Gas Lisbon under Liberian flag, was attacked and exploded approximately 30 km from the Romanian port of Sulina outside Romanian territorial waters on the night of July 20 to 21 while sailing from Egypt to Ukraine; three crew members were wounded, and Romanian President Nicusor Dan called the strike 'most likely' a Russian attack and launched a probe

Russia stepped up strikes on merchant vessels and ports near Odesa in the Black Sea in late July 2026, killing at least ten people and disrupting Ukraine's grain export corridor; European wheat prices climbed above 230 euros per tonne at the Paris Euronext, with some readings reaching 240 euros, as traders priced in a sustained disruption to Black Sea grain shipments

The Bosphorus and Dardanelles, governed by Turkey under the 1936 Montreux Convention, are the only maritime passage between the Black Sea and the Mediterranean.

The 40km Black Sea peninsula at the mouth of the Dnipro-Bug estuary fell to Ukraine after a logistics strangulation campaign cut off Russian supply lines