(London) The United Kingdom on Wednesday accused Russia of considering attacking civilian ships in the Black Sea using sea mines, in order to prevent the export of Ukrainian grain.
” Information […] suggest that Russia is seeking to target civilian ships using the ‘humanitarian corridor’ in Ukraine in order to disrupt the export of Ukrainian grain,” the British Foreign Office wrote in a statement.
Moscow “will certainly want to avoid openly sinking civilian ships and will wrongly blame Ukraine for any attacks,” he adds.
This information “demonstrates (Russian President Vladimir) Putin’s total disregard for civilian lives and the needs of the world’s most vulnerable”, while many African countries depend on Ukrainian agriculture for their grain supply, denounced the head of British diplomacy James Cleverly, quoted in the press release.
By making this information public, “the United Kingdom wants to denounce Russian tactics and prevent such an incident from occurring”, further affirms London, which adds “to work with Ukraine and other partners to put in place measures to improve the safety of maritime transport.
Since the start of the war in Ukraine, the United Kingdom has deployed intelligence assets to monitor Russian activity in the Black Sea.
“These capabilities will help us attribute and denounce any Russian attacks in the future against civilian infrastructure or vessels,” warns the Foreign Ministry.
According to London, since its withdrawal from the agreement on Ukrainian grain exports via the Black Sea in July, Russia has destroyed 130 port infrastructure in Ukraine and destroyed 300,000 tonnes of grain.
Last month, the United Kingdom had already accused Russian forces of having attempted to destroy a civilian cargo ship flying the Liberian flag docked at the port of Odessa at the end of August with several missile attacks.
Since this summer, the number of attacks in the Black Sea has increased on both sides, with Russia in particular having intensified its bombing of Ukraine’s transport infrastructure.