Russia fires on and boards cargo vessel in Black Sea: ‘Provocative actions’

Russia’s military stopped a cargo ship heading to a Ukrainian port in the Black Sea on Sunday, the country’s defense ministry said.

The Black Sea Fleet patrol ship Vasily Bykov detected the bulk cargo ship Sukru Okan, a Turkish-owned vessel that was flying under Palau’s flag. The captain of the vessel did not respond to requests to stop for inspection, and as a result, Russian troops “opened warning fire to forcefully stop the vessel,” the ministry said in a statement.

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“In order to inspect the bulk cargo ship, a Ka-29 helicopter with a group of Russian servicemen was hoisted from the patrol ship Vasily Bykov,” it continued. “Following radio conversations, the ship stopped its course and the boarding team landed on the bulk cargo ship.”

The ministry said the ship was heading to the port of Izmail, while shipping data platform vesselfinder.com tracked it as heading for the Romanian port of Sulina.

Last month, Russia withdrew its participation in an agreement brokered by the United Nations and Turkey that allowed vital Ukrainian exports to leave their ports safely, with Moscow leaders saying that any ships heading to Ukraine would be treated as if they were aiming to aid Ukrainian forces. Following Russia’s decision to leave the deal, its armed forces began to target Ukrainian ports, raising concerns about a global grain shortage that could have widespread effects across the world.

Ukrainian officials made similar subsequent warnings.

In the roughly one year since the agreement was put into place, more than 35 million tons of grain left the port, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said last week, while future exports now face a more perilous path.

After Russia fired upon the cargo ship, the Ukrainian Ministry of Foreign Affairs said in a statement that it “strongly condemns the provocative actions” and that the Russian Navy “grossly violated the UN Charter, the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea, and other norms of international law.”

Natalia Humeniuk, the spokeswoman for Ukraine’s southern military command, noted that the Russian statement hadn’t been confirmed by other official sources, saying, “The peculiarities of hybrid warfare should be kept in mind.”

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“This statement could be a signal to all civilian vessels in the Black Sea,” she said, adding that Russia was looking to operate in the Black Sea and “face no consequences.”

The Kremlin has maintained it would be ready to return to the agreement “as soon as the West actually fulfills all the obligations to Russia fixed in them.”