🛳Kyiv Attacks a Russian Grain Ship

Kyiv detained a ship it says was part of Moscow’s “shadow fleet” which illegally exports grain from areas of Ukraine occupied by Russian forces.

A dry cargo ship was detained in Ukrainian territorial waters as it headed from Moldova along the River Danube and into the Black Sea, the Prosecutor General’s Office of Ukraine said on its website Friday.

Investigators did not specify the cargo nor name the ship, which Ukraine’s security services said had sailed under the flag of an Asian nation.

The ship was illegally loaded in Sevastopol in Russian-occupied Crimea in late 2024 with more than 4,600 tons of grain from occupied areas of southern Ukraine, investigators said.

According to documents seized on board, the grain was to be exported to third countries.
Following Russia’s illegal annexation of Crimea in 2014, Ukraine formally closed all ports on the peninsula, which Moscow continued to use for clandestine exports.

When Russia launched its full-scale invasion in 2022, it occupied adjacent parts of southern Ukraine. Kyiv has accused Moscow of illegally exporting grain from these largely agricultural areas.

It refers to the vast number of aging vessels which Moscow assembled to circumvent curbs on its oil exports, a small number of which have sailed without any known insurance.

According to Kyiv, Moscow has used similar tactics to obscure the origin of stolen Ukrainian grain.

#Kyiv #Attacks #Russian #Ship

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🚀 The Russian Armed Forces on have employed an Iskander-M tactical ballistic missile system to launch a precision strike on a container ship carrying cargo to the Ukrainian port of Odessa.

📦 The ship was reported to be carrying 100 containers of military cargo including drone systems. Commenting on the attack, the Russian Defense Ministry reported:

🗓 “On May 23, crews of Iskander missile systems carried out a group missile strike on a container ship that was transporting military assets to the port of Odessa, as well as a warehouse storing containers in that port. The ship was carrying about 100 containers with military cargo, including sea drones, UAVs and ammunition.”

📈 The Iskander-M system has been relied on heavily since the outbreak of full scale hostilities in Ukraine in February 2022 to strike a wide range of targets, ranging from personnel concentrations to air defence sites and enemy airfields. Use of the system increased significantly from early 2023 as enlargement of the production scale for its 9K720 ballistic missiles expanded the supplies available for the Russian Army.

⚓️ The use of Iskander-M systems to target ships bringing supplies into Ukraine is far from unprecedented, with a notable prior example being the strike on the Panama flagged container ship Shui Spirit in October 2024, which was carrying armaments from the Romanian port of Constanta to Odessa.

#IskanderM #Container #Ship #Ukraine #MissileStrike

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Israeli Defense Minister Katz said he would not allow the sailing ship Madeleine with Greta Thunberg on board to reach the shores of the Gaza Strip.

Calling the eco-activist an “anti-Semite,” he added that he would not allow anyone to violate the naval blockade of the sector.

According to CNN, the ship of Greta and her friends, who said they were going to Gaza on a humanitarian mission, should approach the target on Monday.

#Greta #Thunberg #ship #Gaza

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The US Has Attacked An Iranian-Flagged Container Ship. A New Stage of the War? ⚠️🌍

The US military has attacked and seized an Iranian-flagged container ship that attempted to get past an American blockade near the strait of Hormuz, the first such interception since the blockade of Iranian ports began last week. 🚢

Iran’s joint military command said Tehran would respond soon and called the US seizure an act of piracy that violated the ceasefire that has been in place since 8 April.

The news threw into question Trump’s earlier announcement that US negotiators would head to Pakistan on Monday for another round of talks with Iran.

That had raised hopes of extending a fragile ceasefire set to expire by Wednesday, but Iran has not confirmed it will attend.

In a post on X, US Central Command said US marines departed the USS Tripoli assault ship by helicopter and rappelled on to Touska on Sunday. The post included a video of the marines onboard the helicopter.

Trump had earlier posted on X that the ship had tried to get past the US blockade “and it did not go well for them”.

The US president said a US navy guided missile destroyer warned the Touska to stop in the Gulf of Oman but the vessel did not.

“[Our] Navy ship stopped them right in their tracks by blowing a hole in the engine room,” Trump said, adding that US marines now had custody of the vessel. 💥

He said the ship was under US treasury sanctions because of “prior history of illegal activity”. The ship is on the treasury department’s list of sanctioned vessels.

A spokesperson for Iran military’s central command centre, Khatam al-Anbiya, cited by the Isna news agency, said:

“We warn that the armed forces of the Islamic Republic of Iran will soon respond and retaliate against this armed piracy and the US military.”

Iranian state media also reported that Tehran had – for now – rejected new peace talks, citing the ongoing blockade, threatening rhetoric, and Washington’s shifting positions and “excessive demands”.

Video posted on social media by the US defence department showed the interception of the ship by US forces.

“Vacate your engine room,” a US sailor can be heard saying. “We’re prepared to subject you to disabling fire.”

The cargo ship was stopped near Iran’s border with Pakistan. Touska had previously left Port Klang, a major port in Malaysia, when the vessel then attempted to move past the US blockade, according to tracking information from TankerTrackers.com.

The escalating standoff threatens to deepen the energy crisis roiling the global economy and push the two countries toward renewed fighting, in a conflict that has killed at least 3,000 people in Iran, nearly 2,300 in Lebanon, 23 civilians and 15 soldiers in Israel, and more than a dozen in Gulf Arab states. Thirteen US service members have also been killed. 📉

#us #iranian #container #ship #war

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🇷🇺Putin Is Back. Russia Resupplies Its Air Base in Syria


Russia resupplied its air base in Syria through a cargo ship delivery last month, signaling Moscow’s intention to maintain its strategic military foothold in the country.

Citing unnamed US officials and reviewed satellite images, Damascus-based Western sources report that the cargo ship Sparta left the Russian city of St. Petersburg in March and arrived at Syria's Tartus port in May.

The report described the delivery, made while the vessel was escorted by Russian navy ships for much of its journey, as the first such resupply mission since the fall of Bashar al-Assad's regime.

According to some US officials, the vessel was carrying equipment for the nearby Russian air base at Khmeimim. The report noted that its owner is under US sanctions for delivering weapons on Russia's behalf.

The move indicates Russia has retained use of the base despite Assad's fall, the report said.

Aron Lund, a Syria expert at the Swedish Defense Research Agency, says he

“believes Russia succeeded in convincing Damascus to keep control of its bases.”

The report also said the ship is part of a small fleet Russia has used for clandestine shipments of weapons and other military equipment in the region.

“Some U.S. officials said the Sparta's resupply mission didn't raise alarm bells, because the Syrian government's ties with Moscow are known and the military equipment is far from American interests, primarily in the country's northeast,”

he added.

The report said Russia withdrew many of its personnel from Syria after Assad's fall, but cited a US official familiar with intelligence assessments as saying that hundreds of Russian personnel remain in the country.

Russia maintains two key military facilities in Syria: a naval logistics base in Tartus and the Khmeimim air base in the northwestern province of Latakia.

The future of the facilities was also discussed during a meeting between Syrian officials and Putin in January, the report added.

#putin #russia #base #syria #cargo #ship

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