A senior Ukrainian official on Wednesday, March 30, said Russian Federation (RF) units are dumping free-floating sea mines into the Black Sea, threatening commercial navigation potentially for years to come.
Serhiy Bratchuk, head of the Odesa Defense Command, said Ukrainian military intelligence has confirmed RF naval forces based in the Crimean port Sevastopol are using sea mines originally owned by Kyiv, but taken by the Kremlin’s when the RF invaded and annexed Ukraine’s Crimea peninsula in 2014.
The mines drift on sea currents an already NATO naval forces have spotted the mines adjacent to or in Romanian, Bulgarian and Turkish territorial waters, Bratchuk said. He did not estimate the number of mines put into the water by the RF.
Turkish and Romanian mine clearing units first observed and disposed of individual weapons on 26 and 28 March respectively, he said.
Bratchuk’s comments came alongside a Wednesday declaration by Ukraine’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs accusing the Kremlin of deploying the sea mines in intentional violation of longstanding international free sea navigation agreements, and trying to shift the blame to Ukraine by launching mines with Ukrainian markings.
Ukraine has launched no sea mines during its war against Russia, and the markings on the mines currently in the water definitively identify them as military equipment taken by the RF after its capture of UAF naval bases in Crimean in 2014, the statement said.
The Ukraine Foreign Ministry declaration came one day after US vice Secretary of State Wendy Sherman, speaking at a UN Security Council meeting, accused the RF navy of having effectively taken hostage of more than 94 commercial cargo ships carrying food to Ukraine, or foodstuffs from Ukraine, by declaring a naval blockade on Ukrainian ports.
The blockade will inevitably spike word grain prices, she said, because Ukraine is one of the world’s largest grain exporters, but because of the RF blockade Ukrainian grain now cannot reach its markets.
