Ukraine says seized cargo ship used for Crimea grain exports

KIEV

Kiev said on Thursday that it had seized a foreign cargo ship and detained its captain, alleging that the vessel had illegally exported Ukrainian grain from the annexed Crimean peninsula.

Since Russia's capture of swathes of agricultural land in Ukraine in early 2022, Kiev has accused Moscow of illegally harvesting and shipping grain produced on occupied territory to third countries.

The Ukrainian prosecutor general's office said it had "seized" a foreign vessel in the Odesa region that had earlier exported agricultural products via the port of Sevastopol, a key military hub for Russia in the Black Sea.

The Security Services of Ukraine (SBU) said in a separate statement that it had detained the ship's captain, accusing him of violating rules on entering occupied territory.

It also claimed that the grain exported by the vessel, Usko Mfu, had been produced in southern Ukraine.

The charges carry a maximum penalty of five years in prison, the SBU said, while prosecutors identified him as a citizen of Azerbaijan, an ex-Soviet country in the South Caucasus.

Prosecutors said 12 other foreign crew members were also on board at the time of the vessel's seizure, without elaborating on their nationality or whether they too would face charges.

The Cameroonian-flagged vessel illegally entered the Sevastopol port in November 2023 and was loaded with more than 3,000 tons of agricultural products "intended for a Turkish company," prosecutors said.

"To conceal the illegal activity, the ship's Automatic Identification System (AIS) was turned off before entering the port of Sevastopol, which is a gross violation of maritime safety requirements," their statement added.

Prosecutors said the ship returned to Sevastopol a second time in May this year. It was seized at the Ukrainian port of Reni, they added, where they discovered documents issued by Sevastopol port authorities.

The European Union in May imposed "prohibitive" duties on grain imports from Russia in a bid to cut off revenues to Moscow for its war on Ukraine.

The bloc's trade commissioner said the measure would "tackle illegal Russian exports of stolen Ukraine grain into EU markets."

Meanwhile, Hungary is hit by a blast of opprobrium by almost all other EU countries over a go-it-alone diplomatic initiative on Ukraine being staged by Prime Minister Viktor Orban.

Ambassador after ambassador lambasted Budapest in a two-hour closed-door meeting in Brussels, each ramming home that Orban's initiative was incompatible with Hungary currently holding the rotating EU presidency, according to multiple diplomats.

Twenty-five of the bloc's 27 countries "expressed wide dissatisfaction or anger at how the Hungarian presidency is unrolling," after Orban made impromptu visits in recent days to speak with Russian President Vladimir Putin and then Chinese President Xi Jinping, said one EU diplomat.

Hungary's protestations that it was merely conducting a bilateral exercise to feel out possible conditions for a Ukraine-Russia ceasefire "were not credible, given the timing and sequencing of the meetings", another diplomat told AFP.