Another Russian Ship That Transported Stolen Metal Arrives in Mariupol Seaport

The Russians plan to begin transshipping stolen grain and sunflower seeds through the port in May.

Another vessel belonging to the Russian occupiers – the same Astrakhan river/sea vessel that was used to transport rolled metal out of the Mariupol seaport – has entered the Mariupol seaport.

Petro Andriuschenko, an adviser to the mayor of Mariupol, announced this in a statement, the CFTS portal reports.

“Now, the ship brought ‘building materials.’ Mostly for the construction of a concrete plant in the center of Mariupol,“ he said.

In addition, according to Andriuschenko, the Russian occupiers plan to begin transshipping stolen grain and sunflower seeds through the Mariupol seaport in May 2023.

“After loading, the river/sea vessel will move to a transshipment platform near Kerch, where transshipment onto large-capacity vessels will take place. This scheme was agreed upon one year ago with the participation of Syria,“ Andriuschenko said.

As the CFTS portal reported earlier, Russia plans to turn Mariupol into a major logistics hub for exporting grain from the temporarily occupied territories in the Donetsk and Zaporizhia regions. For this, it is demolishing the railway station and rebuilding the seaport. “If they succeed in implementing their plans, they will be able to use it to export grain from the occupied territories in the Donetsk region and Zaporizhia,“ Andriuschenko said.

As the CFTS portal also reported earlier, the Russians have illegally added the ports of Mariupol and Berdiansk to the Russian Register of Seaports and begun adding a section of the navigable waterways in the Kherson region to the “List of Internal Waterways of the Russian Federation.“

The CFTS portal also reported that the Russians are exporting ore from temporarily occupied Ukrainian territories through the Mariupol seaport. Entities linked to Russia’s Federal Security Service (FSB), under the auspices of which the looting of Ukrainian mineral resources is taking place, sell the stolen Ukrainian ore.