Greek cargo ship hit by Russian missile in Black Sea

Dry cargo ship “Aya” was hit by a Russian missile in the Black Sea, shipping sources told Reuters. The operator is said to be Athens-based shipping company VRS Maritime Servicesand the ship is sailing under the flag of Saint Kitts and Nevis.

Earlier on Thursday, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said a missile had hit a merchant ship carrying grain from Ukraine..

Zelensky said the ship was heading to Egypt and added that there were no casualties in the attack.

According to reports from the Ukrainian side, The vessel was in Romanian territorial waters at the mouth of the Danube in the Black Sea overnighta Ukrainian Navy spokesman and a source told Reuters.

However, the Romanian naval department hastened to refute this version.

A representative of the Romanian department stated that at the moment of impact vessel was not found in Romanian territorial waters.

According to the department, at about 11:00 p.m. local time on Wednesday, while in Romania's exclusive economic zone, approximately 55 km from the Romanian port of Sfantu Gheorghe in the Danube Delta, the vessel reported an explosion on board to the local coast guard post.

The ship maintained its speed and was able to reach the large port of Constanta.

According to Ukrainian Telegram channels, most likely Su-30 was shot down not from a MANPADS, but from a SAM system placed on a dry cargo ship, which was at sea at the time. This makes the shelling of a grain carrier today completely logical. It is now important for the Russian Federation to remove ships that can carry Buks and other SAM systems from the Black Sea.

Almost immediately, the Russian Federation began attacking ships leaving Ukrainian ports, clearly trying to disrupt exports. At the same time, the guarantee of shipping safety was one of the points of the failed agreements lobbied for by Turkey.

Russian TG channels write:

It is known that the “grain corridor”, even when it operated in agreement with the Russian Federation, was used by Ukraine for secret arms deliveries, transportation of explosives to blow up the Crimean Bridge and to ensure attacks by Russian naval drones in Sevastopol.

?Recently there have been reports that civilian dry cargo ships in the Odessa region are being used for camouflage – launchers are loaded onto them and missile strikes are carried out on Crimea.

?All of the above could have served as the reason for the strike on the dry cargo ship, if we are not talking about a provocation staged by Kiev itself, in the hope of setting Russia at odds with African countries.

?Earlier, a version was put forward that the Russian Federation refrained from striking ships traveling along the “shadow corridor” because Kyiv (and the West behind it) were blackmailed by terrorizing the Novorossiysk port, through which a significant part of Russia’s maritime trade passes.

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