70 ships from 16 countries continue to be blocked at Ukrainian ports - defense ministry
The ships cannot take to the sea because of threats of shelling and high mine alerts in Ukraine’s inland and territorial waters, Mikhail Mizintsev said
MOSCOW, May 24. /TASS/. Ukraine’s authorities keep on blocking 70 foreign ships from 16 countries at the country’s ports, Mikhail Mizintsev, chief of Russia’s National Defense Management Center, said on Tuesday.
"Seventy foreign ships from 16 countries continue to be blocked at six Ukrainian ports (Kherson, Nikolayev, Chernomorsk, Ochakov, Odessa, and Yuzhny)," he said, adding that ships cannot take to the sea because of threats of shelling and high mine alerts in Ukraine’s inland and territorial waters.
According to Mizintsev, who heads the Russian Joint Coordination Headquarters for Humanitarian Response in Ukraine, Ukraine’s authorities continue to evade contacts with the representatives of the states and ship-owning companies to ensure safe passage of foreign ships. He stressed that Russia is doing its best to ensure civil navigation in the Black, Azov and opens a maritime humanitarian corridor in a southwestern direction from Ukraine’s territorial sea every day. Apart from that, he again warned about mine hazards in the Black Sea due to drifting Ukrainian mines.