Ukrainian court sentences ship captain who helped smuggle Ukrainian grain out of Crimea

The court passed a verdict against the captain of the “USKO MFU” ship, which was detained in the port of Reni in July 2024 for entering the Sevastopol Commercial Sea Port.

According to the published verdict of the Shevchenkivskyi District Court of Kyiv, the captain must pay a fine of 6,000 tax-free minimums (102,000 hryvnias) and cannot operate maritime transport for two years.

It should be noted that the maximum penalty that the captain of the “USKO MFU” ship faced under this article was up to 5 years in prison.

Recall that in the summer of 2024, the SBU detained a foreign cargo ship and its captain in Reni, who worked for the aggressor. The ship’s crew was fulfilling Russian orders to export Ukrainian grain from the occupied Crimea, the SBU reported at the time.

The investigation established that in 2023-2024. the ship repeatedly entered the port of Sevastopol to load stolen grain. After that, the ship transported agricultural products to the countries of the Middle East. The captain periodically turned off the AIS on the ship and entered unreliable information about routes and stops in the logbook.

The captain of the ship turned out to be a citizen of one of the countries of the South Caucasus. The crew also included 12 more foreigners.

Earlier, USM reported that Ukraine detained the ship on the Danube due to ties with the Russian Federation. The ship “USKO MFU” entered Ukrainian waters after a voyage to occupied Sevastopol.