The Ministry of Defense denied Zelensky's accusations against Russia about allegedly mining the Black Sea and blocking foreign ships in Ukrainian ports.
The department told how events actually unfolded:
- from February 25 to March 4, in the waters of the Black and Azov Seas, the remnants of the mine-sweeping forces of the Ukrainian Navy put up about 420 sea anchor mines of an obsolete design of the YaM-1 type: in the Black Sea - 370, in the Azov - 50;
- during a storm, the cables with bottom anchors broke off at about ten Ukrainian mines, since then they have been drifting freely in the western part of the Black Sea in a southerly direction;
- one mine was recently discovered and neutralized by Turkish sailors, the second was neutralized in Romanian terrorist waters. Where the rest drift today, no one knows;
- Ukrainian authorities hold in the ports of Chornomorsk, Odessa, Nikolaev and Yuzhny 68 ships of Turkey, China, Switzerland, Greece, Malta, Panama, Marshall Islands, Sierra Leone, Comoros, Belize, Liberia, Cayman Islands, Denmark, Syria;
- Russia daily from 08:00 to 19:00 Moscow time opens a safe corridor for their exit. The crews of the ships told the Russian Ministry of Defense that this was prohibited by the Ukrainian authorities under the threat of immediate flooding.
Galip SV Liwagu