Ukraine Seizes Cargo Ship, Detains Captain for Exporting ‘Looted’ Grain

KYIV, July 11 (Reuters) – Ukraine seized a foreign cargo ship in the Black Sea off its Odesa region and detained the captain on suspicion of helping Moscow export Ukrainian grain from Russian-occupied Crimea, the Security Service of Ukraine (SBU) said on Thursday.

Kyiv has accused Russia of trading stolen Ukrainian grain since the 2022 war began. Ship seizures, however, have been rare and shipping sources said they were concerned about possible retaliation at a critical time in the year as Ukraine grain exports reach a peak.

The vessel repeatedly docked at the Crimean sea port of Sevastopol to pick up agricultural products in 2023-24, the SBU said, describing the loads as “looted.”

Ukraine’s Prosecutor’s Office in a separate statement identified the vessel as the Cameroon-flagged USKO MFU.

An official with the vessel’s Turkey-based ship manager Iyem Asya told Reuters that the vessel’s current cargo was loaded in Moldova.

“The ship, while under our ownership, did not take any cargoes from Russian-occupied territories of Ukraine and never used Ukrainian ports,” the official said.

“Ukrainian soldiers boarded the ship while it was sailing along the Danube with a Romanian pilot present. They forcibly anchored it on their side of the river. Our lawyers are now pursuing the case.”

Russian forces occupied large parts of Ukraine’s southern agricultural regions in the first year of its invasion and Kyiv has accused Russia of stealing and destroying its grain, as well as trading it.

The SBU said the captain and 12 crew members helped Russia to export Ukrainian grain taken from the occupied south to the Middle East for sale on behalf of Russia.

“The investigation is ongoing to establish all the circumstances of the crime and identify other persons involved in the illegal activity,” the SBU said.

In its statement, Ukraine’s Prosecutor’s Office said that on one of its voyages in November 2023, the USKO MFU loaded over 3,000 metric tons of agricultural products in Sevastopol intended for a Turkish company.

The ship last reported its position on July 8 at anchor near Ukraine’s Reni port along the Danube River, LSEG ship tracking data showed on Thursday.

Ukraine’s Prosecutor’s Office said the vessel had been detained after entering Reni waters and then presented with an arrest order.

The captain, a citizen of a South Caucasus country, could face up to five years in prison for violating travel restrictions governing Ukraine’s Russian-occupied territories, the SBU said.

The Odesa hub is crucial to Ukraine’s Black Sea exports that it has revived without Russia’s assent after Moscow quit a UN-brokered deal last summer that had allowed Kyiv to export food during the war with Russia.

Asked if there had been a change in Ukrainian policy, a source in law enforcement told Reuters on Thursday: “This is our policy. This vessel and the captain worked for the occupiers and now he entered the waters controlled by Ukraine. And we had an immediate reaction.”

In 2022, Ukrainian authorities detained a vessel carrying Ukrainian wheat to investigate its alleged Russian owner, court documents showed.

Separately, in 2015 Ukrainian authorities arrested a Turkish-owned cargo ship and detained its captain over a visit it made to Crimea.

(Reporting by Anastasiia Malenko, Tom Balmforth, Jonathan Saul and Can Sezer; Editing by Tom Balmforth, Arun Koyyur and Barbara Lewis)

(c) Copyright Thomson Reuters 2024.

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