Turkey disposes stray naval mine in Bosphorus

ANKARA

Turkey resumed marine traffic in the Bosporus on March 26 after it was suspended for nearly four hours following the discovery of a stray naval mine.

A team of divers has "deactivated" an old naval mine floating in the Bosporus, Defense Minister Hulusi Akar has said. 

Russia’s main intelligence agency on March 21 said several hundred mines had drifted into the Black Sea after breaking off from cables near Ukrainian ports. “After the start of the Russian special military operation, Ukrainian naval forces had deployed barriers of mines around the ports of Odessa, Ochakov, Chernomorsk and Yuzhny,” the FSB security service said. The cables were cut due to storms, and some of them were floating freely in the western Black Sea, pushed along by wind and the currents, it added.

Ukraine, however, dismissed the claim, saying that it was disinformation aimed at closing off parts of the sea.