According to information from Moscow, the crew of a Russian warship stopped a freighter in the Black Sea with warning shots. The ship, flying the Palau flag, did not respond to requests to inspect the goods, it said.
According to the Ministry of Defense in Moscow, a Russian warship is said to have stopped a cargo ship bound for Ukraine on the Black Sea with warning shots.
The Russian patrol boat “Vassily Bykov” and a freighter flying the flag of Palau, which the ministry called “Sukra Okan”, were involved in the incident. What was probably meant was the Turkish freighter “Sukru Okan”, which sails under the flag of the Pacific state of Palau and was on the Black Sea on Sunday. So far there has been no confirmation of the incident from Turkey or any other party.
Shots from automatic handguns
At 6.40 a.m. Moscow time (5.40 a.m. CEST), the freighter was on its way to the Ukrainian Danube port of Izmail. The captain of the freighter did not respond to the request to “inspect goods prohibited for transport”. As a result, warning shots were fired from automatic handguns “to force the ship to stop,” the ministry said.
In addition, a helicopter with Russian military personnel was sent to inspect the ship. After the inspection was completed, the freighter was allowed to continue its journey. The Russian information cannot be verified.
Incident apparently took place off the Turkish coast
Ukraine’s Danube port of Izmail, on the border with Romania, has been the main export port for Ukrainian grain since Russia pulled out of the Black Sea grain deal last month. Since then, Moscow has stepped up attacks on ports in southern Ukraine’s Odessa region, which are central to the safe export of Ukrainian grain across the Black Sea.
The Russian ministry only roughly named the south-west of the Black Sea as the location of the incident. According to the online ship tracker Vesselfinder, the “Sukru Okan” headed north off the Turkish coast on Sunday morning and reached Bulgarian territorial waters around noon. Accordingly, the incident is likely to have occurred just off the Turkish coast. However, Vesselfinder did not list Ismajil as the destination of the “Sukru Okan”, but Sulina in Romania.