At the request of the Prosecutor's Office for the Republic of Crimea, a court has ordered the arrests of five Russian maritime vessels involved in the transportation of stolen Ukrainian grain through the occupied peninsula, the CFTS portal reports.
During criminal proceedings involving violations of the procedure for entering and leaving the occupied territory (Section 2, Article 332-1 of the Ukrainian Penal Code), it was established that the Russian-flagged vessels Vera, Volgo-Don 5043, Volgo-Don 205, Volgo-Balt 188, and Volgo-Balt 106 conducted systematic illegal measures in relation to the closed commercial seaport in the Crimea.
"The violators thus transported stolen Ukrainian grain to third countries, using Crimea as a sort of ‘logistics hub’ in a criminal scheme," the court said in a statement.
As part of these criminal proceedings, the court ordered the arrests of 15 offending vessels at the request of the Prosecutor's Office for the Republic of Crimea.
Ukraine has officially suspended the operations of all the seaports in the occupied Crimea and Sevastopol and closed the peninsula’s harbors to international shipping since July 2014. Crimean law enforcement bodies consider the entry of foreign-flagged ships into Crimean seaports as actions undermining Ukraine’s sovereignty and violating its national legislation, for which owners, operators, and captains of ships are criminally liable.
