Russia’s and Ukraine’s messaging war continued on Monday when Russia’s main intelligence agency said hundreds of sea mines had broken loose in the Black Sea. Ukraine insists Russia is using the announcement as cover to shut down shipping in the area.
The Black Sea offers key shipping routes for grain and oil. It also borders key strategic areas in Ukraine that have seen some of the fiercest fighting since Russia invaded the country last month.
Reuters reported it has seen a note from Russia’s Novorossiisk Port Authority stating “storm weather” had put ships in the area at risk.
“Due to storm weather, the cables connecting the mines to anchors were broken,” Russia’s Federal Security Service, the main successor to the Soviet-era KGB, said in a press release on March 19. “Due to wind and water currents, the mines are drifting freely in the western part of the Black Sea.”
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Ukraine said Russia’s announcement was “complete disinformation” and that the Ukrainian navy was the only entity with the authority to issue safety statements about the region.
“This is complete disinformation from the Russian side,” Viktor Vyshnov, deputy head of Ukraine’s state-run Maritime Administration, told Reuters. “This was done to justify the closure of these districts of the Black Sea under so-called ‘danger of mines'”
The FSB claimed the Ukrainian navy planted the “dilapidated” mines in response to Russia’s “special military operation.”
“After the start of the Russian special military operation, Ukrainian naval forces had deployed barriers of mines around the ports of Odessa, Ochakov, Chernomorsk, and Yuzhny,” the Moscow Times, an English-language, independent newspaper operating out of Amsterdam, reported.
Russia claimed the floating mines could drift into the Mediterranean Sea.
Turkey’s Office of Navigation, Hydrography, and Oceanography echoed the FSB’s warning on March 18 and requested ships in the area to report any sightings of mines.
Since Russia’s invasion, Turkey has been straddling a middle ground. The NATO member, which has been friendly with Russia in the past but also supplied drones to Ukraine as it battled with Russian-backed separatist regions in the eastern part of the country, has recognized Russia’s aggression as a war. That designation allowed it to close the Bosporus Strait, an entrance to the Black Sea, to warships.
However, Turkey has refrained from joining Europe, the United States, and Canada in laying sanctions on Russia.
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Russia established control of a key area along the Black Sea coast when it annexed Crimea in 2014. One of the few successful campaigns, since it invaded Ukraine again last month, was in the coastal city of Kherson.
Last week, the British Ministry of Defence said Russia had established a “distant blockade” of the Black Sea coast, cutting off trade and leaving Ukraine “effectively isolated.”
