NATO ships could intercept ships with stolen Ukrainian grain

NATO warships have the right to detain vessels in international waters if they are involved in illegal activities.

Andriy Klymenko, head of the Monitoring Group of the Institute of Black Sea Strategic Studies, announced this.

Crimea is actively used by the Russian Federation for the illegal export, in fact smuggling, of Ukrainian grain that was grown in Crimea, and now also in the temporarily occupied territories of Zaporizhzhia and Kherson regions.

According to experts’ estimates, since February 2022, about 3 million tons of Ukrainian grain have been exported from Crimea. Mostly, to the ports of Turkey, Syria, Lebanon, Libya and even to Iraq.

Read also: Britain is developing a system to identify grain stolen by Russia.

“All this can be stopped. Any military ship (note Ed. – we are talking about NATO) that is carrying out its mission can detain for inspection any vessel in international waters. If there is contraband, weapons, illegal migrants, drugs, the warship has not only the right, but also the duty to detain it and bring it to its port for prosecution,” explained Andriy Klymenko.

The expert emphasized that NATO ships on missions in the Mediterranean do not do this because they are afraid of a conflict with the Russian Federation.

As previously reported by USM, last year the Russians took out at least 4.8 million tons of stolen grain from the temporarily occupied territories of Ukraine.