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Traces of explosives found in hold of another vessel in Kerch Strait — FSB

It was decided to bar the vessel from passing under the arch of the Kerch Strait crossing and prohibit its further departure for waters beyond the territorial sea of the Russian Federation, the FSB noted

MOSCOW, July 27. /TASS/. The Russian Federal Security Service (FSB) has found traces of explosives in the hold of a dry cargo vessel sailing via a Ukrainian port and the Kerch Strait to Rostov-on-Don to pick up a load of grain, the FSB told TASS on Thursday.

"On July 26, traces of explosives - dinitrotoluene and trotyl - were found in the hold of and on board a life boat of a foreign dry cargo vessel, BMO River, on its way from the port of Sinop, Turkey via the Kerch Strait to Rostov-on-Don to pick up a grain cargo. It was established that the vessel called at the Ukrainian seaport of Reni in the Odessa Region twice this June and July," the FSB reported.

It was decided to bar the vessel from passing under the arch of the Kerch Strait crossing and prohibit its further departure for waters beyond the territorial sea of the Russian Federation, the FSB added.

On Saturday, traces of explosives were found in the hold of another foreign cargo ship sailing from Turkey to Rostov-on-Don to pick up a grain cargo. According to the FSB, in late May the ship was docked in Ukraine’s Danube River port of Kiliya. In July, it was located in the Turkish port of Tuzla, where the ship’s crew was replaced entirely by a new crew, consisting of 12 Ukrainian citizens, and the vessel was renamed. The FSB said then that the abovementioned circumstances indicated that a foreign civilian ship might possibly have been used to deliver explosives to the territory of Ukraine. Back then, the vessel was also barred from passing via the Kerch Strait.

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