Odesa Maritime District Court has ordered the arrest in absentia of the St.Petersburg-registered cargo ship “Varyag,” which has been sailing between Turkey and occupied Crimea under the Panamanian flag.
The arrest order was published on State Registry of Judicial Orders of Ukraine on Nov. 4. The ship and its crew is to be arrested if it enters Ukrainian-controlled territorial waters, the order reads.
According to the court, “Varyag” belongs to a company registered in St. Petersburg, Russia. The ship started to sail between the Crimean city Sevastopol and the Turkish port of Zonguldak in August 2015, and by the end of that year had made 18 voyages.
However, after Turkey shot down a Russian SU-24 military jet just inside Turkish airspace near its border with Syria in December, the ship stopped sailing the route. It resumed sailing on Oct. 28, 2016, from Kozachya Bay in Sevastopol directly to Zonguldak.
Earlier in October, “Varyag” was included on a blacklist of 260 commercial vessels that have visited seaports in occupied Crimea since the implementation of sanctions, according to the Maidan of Foreign Affairs monitoring group.
Ruslan Balbek, the former Deputy Prime Minister of Crimea and now a member of Russian State Duma, confirmed in a post on Facebook on Nov. 7 that direct sea communications between Sevastopol and Turkey had resumed.
He said that previously that the Turkish had refused to accept vessel documents issued in Crimea, and “Varyag” had to go through the Russian port of Novorossiysk. However, since November 2016, Turkish officials have accepted the documents of the Crimean company that operates the vessel.
He called it “a breach of the sanctions defense of the West” and “a triumph of justice.”
“Turkey has not recognized Crimea as a part of Russian territory. It’s a pity, but it’s a fact. Turkish entrepreneurs shipped their goods at their own risk. They didn’t have any official permission from Ankara,” wrote Balbek.
Reportedly, the cargo ship returned from Turkey with a cargo of fruit, construction materials, and home appliances.
Following the illegal annexation of Crimea and Sevastopol, the European Union imposed sanctions against Russia until June 2017. Besides bans on imports, exports, and investments, European cruise ships are banned from calling at ports in Crimea.
Since 2014, Turkey’s leaders have repeatedly claimed that Turkey supports Ukraine’s territorial integrity and will not recognize Russia’s annexation of Ukraine’s Crimean peninsula.
However, “Turkey is not implementing the EU and U.S. economic sanctions imposed on Russia, with which Turkey enjoys friendly relations,” Turkish newspaper the Daily Sabah reported in August 2015.
