The United Kingdom warned on Wednesday that Russia plans to attack civilian ships in the Black Sea with sea mines to prevent the export of Ukrainian grain.
“Intelligence agencies (…) suggest that Russia is attempting to attack civilian ships across the ‘humanitarian corridor’ in Ukraine to disrupt Ukrainian grain exports,” the British Foreign Office said in a statement.
Moscow “will certainly want to prevent the open sinking of civilian ships and will wrongly blame Ukraine for any attack,” he further emphasized.
This information “shows the total disrespect of the [presidente russo Vladimir] Putin for civilian lives and the needs of the world’s most vulnerable”, while many African countries depend on Ukrainian agriculture for their grain supplies, the head of British diplomacy, James Cleverly, denounced mentioned in the press release.
By making this information public, “Britain intends to expose Russian tactics and prevent such an incident,” London also emphasized.
British diplomacy also stressed that it is “working with Ukraine and other partners to implement measures that improve the safety of maritime transport”.
Since the start of the war in Ukraine, Britain has mobilized intelligence services to monitor Russian activities in the Black Sea.
According to London, Russia has destroyed 130 port infrastructures in Ukraine and destroyed 300,000 tons of grain since its withdrawal from the agreement on Ukrainian grain exports via the Black Sea in July.
Last month, Britain had accused Russian forces of trying to destroy a Liberian-flagged civilian cargo ship docked in Odessa port in late August with several rocket attacks.
At the same time, Ukraine is conducting its own drone strikes and bombings, which have become almost daily, on targets in Russia.
The Ukrainian counter-offensive ended four months this Wednesday with advances in the Russian bastion of Bakhmut (Donetsk), and in the region and Zaporijia (southeast), in addition to landing attempts in Crimea.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky acknowledged the main challenges of the counteroffensive: the minefields laid by the Russians and the shortage of anti-aircraft systems and projectiles.
The Russian military offensive on Ukrainian territory, launched on February 24 last year, plunged Europe into what is considered the worst security crisis since World War II (1939-1945).
Ukraine’s Western allies have supplied weapons to Kiev and approved successive sanctions packages against Russian interests to try to reduce Moscow’s ability to finance the war effort.
Source: DN
