Russia said on Wednesday that all commercial ships heading to Ukrainian ports could be seen as hostile. On Thursday, Ukraine’s Ministry of Defense said that ships heading to Russian ports or ports in occupied Ukraine would be seen as carrying “military cargo, with all the risks that come with it.”
“The Kremlin has made the Black Sea a dangerous place for Russian ships by openly threatening civilian ships carrying food from Ukrainian ports, launching missile and drone attacks on civilian infrastructure in peaceful cities, and creating a military threat on trade routes,” the ministry said.
The tit-for-tat threats made things worse in the Black Sea, making people worry that the war could get worse and cause a lot of trouble for commercial shipping, which would hurt grain supplies around the world. It comes just a few days after Russia pulled out of a UN-brokered deal that would have let Ukraine ship grain to the rest of the world, which would have helped with food shortages around the world. Both Russia and Ukraine grow a lot of wheat.
A White House source said that Russia had also mined the roads leading to the ports in Ukraine. This made the minefields in Ukraine even more complicated. Adam Hodge, a spokesman for the National Security Council, said in a statement, “We think this is part of a coordinated effort to justify attacks on civilian ships in the Black Sea and put the blame on Ukraine.”
Russia’s Black Sea force definitely has the power to sink commercial ships that aren’t armed. Ukraine doesn’t have a navy that works, but it has been able to hit Russian warships with rockets and drones. The Russian flag ship, the Moskva, was sunk by its troops last year.
Wednesday, Russia’s Ministry of Defense warned shipping companies and other countries that trying to get around the blockade could be seen as an act of war. It said that ships going to Ukrainian ports would be seen as “potential carriers of military cargo.”
The situation in the Black Sea is getting worse, which made US wheat prices go up on Thursday. On Wednesday, they went up 8.5%, which was the most in a single day since the beginning of Russia’s invasion in February of last year.
