https:\/\/www.politico.eu\/article\/ukraine-declares-war-on-russia-black-sea-shipping\/<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"“Russian ports and ships on the Black Sea \u2014 including tankers carrying millions of barrels of oil to Europe \u2014 could justifiably be attacked by the Ukrainian military as part of efforts to weaken Moscow’s war machine, a senior Kyiv official warned Monday in the wake of two recent attacks on Russian vessels.
\n“Everything the Russians are moving back and forth on the Black Sea are our valid military targets,” Oleg Ustenko, an economic adviser to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, told POLITICO, saying the move was retaliation for Russia withdrawing from the U.N.-brokered Black Sea grain deal and unleashing a series of missile attacks on agricultural stores and ports.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis story started with Russia blocking the grain corridor, threatening to attack our vessels, destroying our ports,\u201d Ustenko said. \u201cOur maritime infrastructure is under constant attack.”<\/p>\n
Over the weekend, Ukraine declared the waters around Russia\u2019s Black Sea ports a \u201cwar risk area\u201d from August 23 \u201cuntil further notice.\u201d The zone includes major Russian ports like Novorossiysk, Anapa, Gelendzhik, Tuapse, Sochi and Taman.” <\/p>\n
…<\/p>\n
“On Saturday, Russia\u2019s federal maritime agency, Rosmorrechflot, reported that a Russian tanker, the Sig, had been hit in an apparent strike by Ukrainian forces while sailing close to Ukraine\u2019s occupied Crimean peninsula.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe tanker received a hit on its engine room, close to the waterline on the starboard side, presumably as a result of an attack by a sea drone,\u201d officials said.<\/p>\n
Ukraine\u2019s defense ministry said that as long as Russians \u201cterrorize peaceful Ukrainian cities and destroy grain condemning hundreds of millions to starvation,\u201d there would be \u201cno more safe waters or peaceful harbors for you in the Black and Azov Seas.\u201d” <\/p>\n
…<\/p>\n
“Last month, Russia shipped almost 59 million barrels of crude oil, a third of its overall exports, from the strategic Black Sea port of Novorossiysk, according to intelligence firm Kpler. Of that, 32 million barrels went to EU countries. The port also handles other fuels like diesel, gasoil and naphtha in addition to grain destined for the global market.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[13],"tags":[1917,552,314,1545,315,1226,311,158],"class_list":["post-11400","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-article-share","tag-black-sea","tag-conflict","tag-international-relations","tag-invasion","tag-russia","tag-shipping","tag-ukraine","tag-war"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lonecandle.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11400","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lonecandle.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lonecandle.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lonecandle.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lonecandle.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=11400"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/lonecandle.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11400\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":11401,"href":"https:\/\/lonecandle.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11400\/revisions\/11401"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lonecandle.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=11400"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lonecandle.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=11400"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lonecandle.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=11400"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}