The Kiev authorities have currently blocked 68 foreign vessels in the ports of the cities of Chernomorsk, Odessa, Nikolaev, and Yuzhny, according to the official representative of the Russian Defense Ministry, Major General Igor Konashenkov.
Earlier, the Head of the National Defense Control Center, Colonel-General Mikhail Mizintsev, said that 67 foreign ships from 15 countries are now blocked in the Ukrainian ports of Kherson, Nikolaev, Chernomorsk, Ochakov, Odessa, and Yuzhny due to threats of shelling and high mine danger. These ships cannot go to the open sea.
According to the latest information given by the representative of the Russia’s Defense Ministry, the forcibly detained vessels belong to Turkey, China, Switzerland, Greece, Malta Panama, Marshall Islands, Sierra Leone, Comoros, Belize, Liberia, Cayman Islands, Denmark, Syria.
Konashenkov noted that Russia opens a safe corridor with a length of 80 and a width of three nautical miles daily from 8 am to 7 pm for foreign vessels to exit the territorial waters of Ukraine in a south-western direction.
“However, the crews of these ships told us during radio conversations that any exit of a foreign vessel from Ukrainian ports was forbidden by the Ukrainian authorities under threat of immediate sinking,” the Defense Ministry explained.
Ru-Main, 31.03.2022
Source: Lenta.ru
