Safe way in the Black Sea
Russia: Foreign ships get sea corridor
03/24/2022, 10:22 p.m
Shipping traffic on the Black Sea is highly dangerous and severely restricted due to the Russian war of aggression in Ukraine. There should now be a sea corridor for foreign ships, reports Russia. It should be open to traffic as early as Friday.
According to Russian information, a sea corridor in the Black Sea is to be set up for foreign ships in Ukrainian ports from tomorrow, Friday. The ships should reach the open sea safely this way, the Russian Ministry of Defense announced in Moscow. The assembly point is 20 nautical miles southeast of the port of Chornomorsk in the Odessa region, said Russian Major General Mikhail Mizintsev.
From there, the ships could leave the Ukraine daily from 6 a.m. to 5 p.m. CET via a corridor three nautical miles wide and 80 nautical miles long in a south-westerly direction. Mizintsev accused the Ukrainian Navy of violating the regulations for the deployment of sea mines and also shelling ships.
“We emphasize once again that the Russian Federation does not pose any threat to free civilian shipping,” Mizintsev said. A total of 67 ships from 15 countries are blocked in various Ukrainian ports.
Last week, both sides blamed each other for a growing threat from sea mines in the north-western Black Sea. The Russian domestic secret service FSB reported that the Ukrainian navy had mined the ports of Odessa, Ochakiv, Chornomorsk and Pivdenny. However, some of the more than 420 anchored sea mines were torn loose in the storm. The Ukrainian portal BlackSeaNews, which specializes in shipping, also quoted the warning of floating sea mines, but citing its own sources reported that the Russian Black Sea Fleet had laid the sea mines on the route between Odessa and the Bosphorus. Neither could be independently verified.