Footage has purportedly shown the moment a Russian military helicopter landed on a civilian cargo ship in the Black Sea.
After Russia’s withdrawal from the Black Sea Initiative a month ago, they claimed they would assume all ships in the grain corridor were militarised and planned to inspect every one of them.
The Russian MoD said on Sunday (August 13) that the captain of the Palau-flagged Sukru Okan, a Turkish cargo vessel, refused to heed calls for such an inspection.
A Russian warship proceeded to fire warning shots to ensure the Okan did stop, before Russian forces appear to have boarded the vessel to conduct a search.
The Russian MoD claimed the Sukru Okan was heading northwards to the Ukrainian Danube River port of Izmail, but it remains outside of Ukraine’s waters according to MarineTraffic.com.
“The captain of the dry-cargo ship did not respond to the request to stop for inspection for the carriage of prohibited goods,” a statement read.
“To force the ship to stop, warning fire was opened from automatic small arms from a Russian warship.”
They added that the ship later stopped and allowed an inspection team to board.
But despite the invasive nature of the move, blockades, in the sense of a “stop and search” policy, are “on the face of them lawful”, according to Wayne Jordash, a British lawyer with more than 20 years in the fields of international human rights and humanitarian law.
They are “anomalies” in international humanitarian law, dating back to a time when it was “acceptable to starve civilians to maintain a siege”.
Though Moscow has been accused of “starving millions” in the Global South as a result of this blockade, such a crime is too distantly-related to be categorised as a war crime.
If Russia were to fire on civilian cargo vessels, however, that would push the blockade within the purview of international humanitarian law.
In the wake of that withdrawal, Russia has also carried out repeated strikes on Ukrainian ports, including Odessa, and declared wide areas of the Black Sea unsafe for shipping.
