In response to Moscow’s threat to bottle up Ukrainian shipping within the shared Azov Sea, the Ukrainian government is currently considering a plan to block Russia’s use of the Danube River. Ukraine’s infrastructure ministry has proposed closing to all Russian shipping the canal in the extreme southeast border region of Ukraine, which vessels use to pass the Danube delta, from the Black Sea to the upstream Danube proper. Such an action would affect relatively small numbers of ships. Nonetheless, Russian officials are clearly worried it could reduce their ability to supply countries in the Balkans. At present, however, the possibility of such a ban is only a threat. And it is likely part of a complex implicit negotiation between Kyiv and Moscow about free passage through the Kerch Strait, across which Russia is building a bridge to occupied Crimea (see EDM, February 12, 22), and about the use of ports in that occupied Ukrainian peninsula by Russian shipping.
Last week (April 23), Yury Lavrenyuk, Ukraine’s deputy infrastructure minister, announced that his agency had “appealed to the National Security and Defense Council regarding the prohibition of the entrance of Russian ships into the domestic waterways of Ukraine because of the high level of terrorist threats” such ships allegedly present. Allowing such ships to pass, he said “is impermissible” because there is “critical infrastructure” along such waterways. His words drew support from other Ukrainian ministries and agencies (Mtu.gov.ua, April 23).
