A Russian warship fired warning shots on Sunday at a cargo ship sailing north from the south-west of the Black Sea. It is the first time Russia has fired on merchant ships since it pulled out of the historic grain export deal last month.
In July, Russia stopped its participation in that agreement that allowed Ukraine to export agricultural products through the Black Sea and Moscow warned that it considered that all ships heading for Ukrainian waters could carry weapons.
Russia has said in a statement that its patrol boat Vasily Bykov had fired automatic weapons at the Palau-flagged cargo ship Sukru Okan after the ship’s captain failed to respond to a request to stop for inspection.
Russia has said that this cargo was heading towards the Ukrainian port of Izmail. “To forcibly stop the ship, warning fire was opened with automatic weapons,” the Russian Defense Ministry said. The Russian military boarded the ship with the help of a Ka-29 helicopter, the ministry said.
“After the inspection group completed its work on board, the Sukru Okan continued on its way to the port of Izmail,” Moscow said.
An official from the Turkish Defense Ministry claims to have heard of an incident involving a ship heading to Romania and that Ankara was investigating it.
For its part, a spokesman for the Ukrainian Defense Ministry has stated that its officials did not yet have details about the incident, but has described it as “clearly another hostile act” by Russia. Reuters could not immediately contact the ship or its owners for comment.
These warning shots at a merchant ship will heighten already acute concerns among shipowners, insurers and commodity traders about the potential dangers of becoming trapped in the Black Sea, the main route used by both Ukraine and Russia to transport their goods. farms to market.
Russia and Ukraine are two of the world’s leading agricultural producers and major players in the markets for wheat, barley, corn, rapeseed, rapeseed oil, sunflower seeds, and sunflower oil. Russia is also dominant in the fertilizer market.
Since Russia withdrew from the Black Sea grains deal, both Moscow and kyiv have issued warnings and carried out attacks that have unnerved global commodity, oil and shipping markets.
Russia has said it will treat any ship approaching Ukrainian ports as a possible military ship, and its flag countries as fighters on the Ukrainian side. Russia has also attacked Ukrainian grain facilities on the Danube.
Ukraine has responded with a similar threat to ships approaching Russian-controlled Ukrainian ports. kyiv has also attacked a Russian tanker and a warship at its Novorossiysk naval base, located next to a major port of departure for grain and oil.
Ukraine and the West view Russia’s moves as amounting to a de facto blockade of Ukrainian ports that threatens to cut off the flow of Ukrainian wheat and sunflower seeds to world markets. Russia dismisses that interpretation, saying the West failed to implement a side deal softening the rules for its own food and fertilizer exports.