Chinese vessels began to enter the port of occupied Sevastopol despite international bans
Since the beginning of the summer, a Chinese container ship has called the port of Sevastopol in the temporarily occupied Crimea four times, loading Russian goods for export to circumvent sanctions. This is reported by Lloyd’s List.
“The Chinese container ship Heng Yang 9 (IMO: 1059979) has carried out four activities since June, falsifying its automatic identification signal”, it said.
In this way, Russia seeks to restore regular container transportation from the port of occupied Sevastopol, where before trade was mostly limited to agricultural products. Part of the cargo in the containers looks like industrial products from the temporarily occupied Donbas, which indicates the restoration of railway logistics in the territories controlled by Russian troops.
At the same time, Russia announced the “opening” for foreign shipping of the ports of Mariupol and Berdyansk, occupied in 2022, but this “normalization” is not legally and ethically recognized by the international community.
Although there are no obstacles in China’s domestic law to book flights to Sevastopol, these measures run counter to a December 2023 International Maritime Organization resolution calling on member states to oblige ships flying their flags to avoid such ports.
For EU shipowners, entry to the temporarily occupied Sevastopol has been formally prohibited since 2014 after the Russian annexation of Crimea, although individual cases of violation of this ban have been recorded.
