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Ukraine Invasion Day 537: Russian navy stops and searches civilian vessels [1]
['This Content Is Not Subject To Review Daily Kos Staff Prior To Publication.']
Date: 2023-08-13
Hotspots of fighting over the weekend along the front line include the southwest of the destroyed city of Bakhmut, in Ukraine's contested Donetsk region, and around the southern settlement of Urozhaine in Zaporizhzhia.
A Russian warship forcibly stopped and searched a civilian cargo ship en route to the Izmail port in Odesa Oblast, likely as part of a Kremlin effort to curtail maritime traffic to Ukrainian ports without committing naval assets to fully enforce a blockade. The Russian Ministry of Defense (MoD) stated that the Russian Vasily Bykov patrol ship forcibly stopped and searched a dry cargo ship sailing under the flag of Palau after it did not respond to the Vasily Bykov’s demand for inspection. [10] The Russian MoD stated that the Russian forces conducted small arms warning fire near the civilian ship before a Ka-29 helicopter landed on the vessel with a group of Russian personnel. [11] The Russian MoD claimed that the Russian personnel conducted an inspection and then allowed the civilian vessel to continue along its route to the Izmail port. [12]
x Russia targeted a #Turkish civilian vessel (under the flag of the Republic of Palau) heading for Sulina. Warning shots were fired at it!
After the stop, a Ka-29 helicopter was picked up by the Russian military vessel Vasily Bykov and lowered onto the Turkish vessel for… pic.twitter.com/zQoeaI4Byz — Radu Hossu 🇹🇩🇺🇦 (@RaduHossu) August 13, 2023
The Russian MoD announced on July 19 that it would consider all ships en route to Ukrainian ports as potential military cargo carriers and the flag countries of such vessels as “involved in the Ukrainian conflict on the side of the Kyiv regime.” [13] Russian forces did not stop three civilian ships which openly advertised their destination as Ukraine over their ships‘ automatic identification system (AIS) on July 30. [14] The reports of the three civilian ships sailing to Ukraine unhindered suggested that Russian forces may be unable or unwilling to forcibly stop and search neutral vessels, and Russian forces likely conducted their first forced inspection to reimpose the threat of escalation against civilian vessels en route to Ukraine. [15] Russian forces also likely conducted the forced stop and inspection to undermine confidence in temporary trading corridors through the Black Sea to Ukrainian ports, which Ukrainian officials announced on August 10. [16] The Russian naval posturing in the Black Sea is likely intentionally ambiguous and seeks to create a chilling effect on civilian maritime traffic to Ukraine without requiring Russian forces to commit Black Sea Fleet assets to the enforcement of a naval blockade. [17] The Russian military is likely less willing to commit the Black Sea Fleet to such a blockade than it was in July following notable Ukrainian strikes on Russian naval targets in the Black Sea and the Novorossiysk naval base in Krasnodar Krai in early August. [18]
www.understandingwar.org/...
On Sunday, Russia said its Vasily Bykov patrol ship had fired automatic weapons on the Palau-flagged Sukru Okan vessel after the ship’s captain failed to respond to a request to halt for an inspection.
Russia said the vessel was making its way toward the Ukrainian port of Izmail. Refinitiv shipping data showed that the ship was currently near the coast of Bulgaria and heading toward the Romanian port of Sulina.
“To forcibly stop the vessel, warning fire was opened from automatic weapons,” the Russian defence ministry said.
www.theguardian.com/...
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