KYIV, Ukraine>> For weeks, a border blockade by Polish truckers has hampered Ukraine’s overland trade severely, preventing the war-torn country from exporting tons of grain, delaying the delivery of vital military equipment and squeezing the country’s meager revenues.

But an economic lifeline has emerged from what was long viewed as a high-risk trade route: the Black Sea.

Ukraine’s government said Tuesday that more than 10 million tons of cargo had been exported through a shipping corridor recently established by Ukraine to evade Russia’s effective blockade of its Black Sea ports. Half of these exports are agricultural products, Oleksandr Kubrakov, Ukraine’s infrastructure minister, said in a statement.

The announcement, which came just a day after Polish truckers resumed blocking one of the main border crossings with Ukraine, was a rare bright spot in an otherwise difficult period for Ukraine, marked by inconclusive fighting against Russia and eroding U.S. support for continued military aid.

Ukraine has scored “a major victory” in the Black Sea, President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said at a news conference Tuesday, highlighting his country’s success in securing the new maritime trade route. Russia, Zelenskyy added, is no longer “blocking Ukraine’s economy” via the sea.

The contrast between the success of the Black Sea route and the disruption at the Polish border is a striking development from the start of the war, when companies worried about shipping goods through the disputed waters of the Black Sea turned to land routes.

But Ukraine’s ability to fend off Russia’s navy and political upheaval on its western borders may now be changing that calculus.

“The Black Sea corridor already bears sizable positive implications for the Ukrainian economy and will likely become one of the key growth drivers next year,” said Olena Bilan, chief economist at the Kyiv-based investment bank Dragon Capital.

Bilan added that trade through the corridor likely had more than compensated for the economic loss caused by the border blockade, noting that Ukraine’s total exports rose by nearly $500 million from October to November, the month the blockade started.

Still, the border disruptions have taken a heavy toll on the Ukrainian economy.

Volodymyr Balin, the vice president of Ukraine’s Association of International Road Carriers, told reporters Tuesday that the country’s economy has lost more than about $1.1 billion, as a result.

The blockade was triggered by a complaint from Polish truckers that cheap competition from Ukrainian counterparts who are not subject to European Union rules on working hours and wages is cutting into their profits.

The Polish and Ukrainian governments have been holding regular talks to solve the issue and Donald Tusk, the newly elected Polish prime minister, has pledged to end the blockade.

But the dispute has dragged on for weeks, and on Wednesday Ukrainian officials said that more than 5,000 vehicles were still lining up to enter Ukraine through four blocked checkpoints.

The blockade has not only hampered trade but also the deliveries of wartime supplies, according to Ukrainian soldiers. A Ukrainian commander said Tuesday that the drones he had ordered were blocked at the Polish border, urging people on social media to help him buy new ones.

In light of the recent border disruptions, analysts say that Black Sea trade might grow in importance.

Bilan said she estimated that commodity exports through the corridor could rise to 7 million tons per month, up from a projected 5 million tons in December, and that exports of high-value products “may partially reorient from the blocked roads to seaports.”

The corridor — which hugs Ukraine’s western Black Sea coast and provides a passage to the territorial waters of countries under NATO protection — was launched in mid-September, after Moscow pulled out of a United Nations-backed agreement that had allowed Ukraine to ship its grain by sea.