It was seen and not seen. On July 28, around 2 in the morning locally, the Matros Pozynicha bulk carrier Russian flag and 129 meters longcapable of transporting 28,351 deadweight tons (TPM), was sailing through the waters close to the Strait of kerchthe arm of the sea that separates the occupied peninsula from crimea of the Russian Federation. Suddenly, the crew disconnected the Automatic Identification System (AIS)), the device by which a vessel periodically communicates its position to coastal authorities and other vessels and which, according to maritime navigation regulations, must remain operational at all times. The aforementioned merchant only reappeared days later, specifically the August 8with its waterline visibly deeper and sailing south towards the Turkish port of iskenderun. A photo of the ship, moored at the Avlita bulk terminal in the port of Sevastopol and taken on August 7 by an anonymous activist from Krym.Reallia news portal on Crimea, is the only trace of his activities during the period in which he remained missing.
The Matros Pozynich forms part of a flotilla made up of two other ships – the matros koshka and the Mikhail Nenashevof similar dimensions, characteristics and capacity – hastily acquired by the Russian company Crane Marine Contractor, based in Astrakhan, in the south of Russia, and initially specialized in the transport of oil derivatives, in the months prior to the outbreak of hostilities in Ukraine. Since then, the three vessels have made numerous stops in Crimea, whose ports had, in theory, been closed to the civilian ship traffic by the Russian authorities after the outbreak of the war, to load dozens of thousands of tons of grain which, according to Ukrainian activists and authorities in kyiv, comes from the occupied areas of Ukraine and, consequently, have been “stolen” from the country Already its citizens.
Although there are other routes, the port of Sevastopol, more specifically the Avlita bulk terminalhas become the epicenter of this ghost trade. “According to my calculations, a huge amount of grain has been taken out of Sevastopol, maybe even 1,000 million tons“, he explains to EL PERIÓDICO Mikhail Boitenkojournalist specializing in maritime traffic, in charge of Maritime Bulletin, a specialized website. The choice of Crimea as the port of departure it’s from a drawer, according to this expert. “All the routes – roads, trains – linking the occupied zone with Russia are inaccessible due to the war, or cannot handle large volumes of cargo,” he continues. Boitenko, originally from Russia but residing abroad and a critic of Moscow, has managed to identify the modus operandi of the Kremlin to get shipping companies from your country to agree to embark on a risky trade that can lead to sanctions or even being included in black lists international. “Normally, the Government addresses a logistics or maritime transport company, makes them a lucrative proposal that they cannot reject, and to avoid being penalized, establishes a shell company and acquires ships”, as seems to be the case of the company that owns the Matros Pozynich, in which corporate phone from Astrakhan no one answers calls.
In the fertile lands of the south
The transfer to destination markets constitutes only one of the last stages of a trade that Ukraine describes as “pillage” and which originates in the fertile cereal fields in the areas under US occupation in the provinces of Kherson Y Zaporizhiarate for THE NEWSPAPER Valentina Samar, director of Center for Journalistic Investigations, based in southern Ukraine. “There are cases where the crop is simply requisitioned, in others the grain is purchased by Russian-controlled start-ups or people related to the occupation for a lower price than the market”, he explains. Specifically, the team led by Samar has identified to State Grain Operatora company founded in the occupied areas of Zaporizhia province and whose ownership structure is unknown. Svetlana Sevchenko, minister of Agriculture and Food Policy of the Russian occupation authorities, a woman who, until the start of the war, resided in Asiatic Russia, to more than 4,000 kilometers from the busy city of Melitopolwhere he is now based, is the person organizing this unique auction of one of the main wealth of the Ukrainian nation.
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All these facts could cause Russia to be accused of a new war crimealthough this will only be possible if it is shown that a series of stipulated circumstances and conditions concur “at the Fourth Geneva Convention”as detailed in an email Jose Antonio Perea UncetaProfessor of Public International Law at the Complutense University of Madrid. “Article 31” of said legal text prohibits coercion, “article 33”, looting and “article 54” establishes the conditions of any search, lists the academic. In summary, “Russia can requisition the production of cereals to supply its troops in Ukraine and its population” on the condition that it “pays a fair price” and does not “dissupply the local population,” says Perea Unceta.
The kyiv Government is pressuring Black Sea riparian states and allied countries to cooperate and end this trade, dubbed the Grain Express by locals, but International Law raises important limitations to any government contemplating arresting these ghost merchant. A ship suspected of complicity in a war crime as looting It can only be approached by a State when it is found “in the waters under its sovereignty” -internal waters and up to 12 miles- but “not on the high seas”, since “it is not any of the excepted cases -piracy and slave trade- contemplated in the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea of 1982“, highlights the Spanish jurist.