Black Sea tensions rise after Russia fired warning shots at cargo ship

The Russian Navy on Sunday fired warning shots at the Palau-flagged dry cargo ship Sukru Okan in the southwestern part of the Black Sea.

PHOTO: The Russian Navy's large landing ship Azov launching missiles. Getty Images

The Sukru Okan was travelling northwards after its captain did not halt the vessel for an inspection.

Russian state-owned media agency TASS reported on Sunday that soldiers on the Russian naval ship Vasily Bykov “forcibly stopped” the vessel heading for the Ukrainian port of Izmail for an inspection.

"The dry cargo ship’s captain did not respond to the demand to stop for an inspection of the potential carriage of prohibited goods. The Russian combat ship fired warning shots from automatic small arms to forcibly stop the vessel," the agency reported, citing a statement from the Ministry of Defence of the Russian Federation.

The Russian military boarded the vessel with assistance from a KA-29 helicopter, TASS reported. This is the first Russian attack on a cargo ship beyond Ukraine since exiting the UN-brokered grain deal in July, reported Reuters.

The vessel was later allowed to continue sailing after completing the inspection, the TASS report said. The vessel is currently en route to the port of Sulina in Romania.

Later on the same day, Mykhailo Podolyak, an adviser to the head of the office of the President of Ukraine Volodymyr Zelenskyy, took to social media platform X (formerly knowns as Twitter), saying that the incident was a “clear violation of international law of the sea, an act of piracy and a crime against civilian vessels of a third country in the waters of other states.”

He said Ukraine will take measures in response to this incident.

By Aparupa Mazumder 

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