CNN obtained a decision from a court in Kyiv on July 20 that gave authorities permission to detain the ship. The Office of the Prosecutor General of Ukraine had asked the court to “prohibit the representatives of the registered owner, beneficial owner, operator, charterer and any other person from taking measures for the disposal, use, alienation of the specified property, including the prohibition them to leave the port of Chornomorsk”. , It was not immediately clear when Ukrainian authorities moved to detain the ships, but shipping industry sources tell CNN it happened last week. A shipping source, who declined to go on the record because of the sensitivity of the matter, said Ukrainian authorities had moved to seize the ship because they wanted to seize any Russian assets possible.
A Ukrainian official confirmed to CNN on Friday that “the ship is under detention and is not allowed to leave the port.” The official would not be named as he was not authorized to speak on the record. A second source familiar with operations in Chornomorsk also confirmed that the ship had been detained. A shipping industry source told CNN that the Emmakris III was loaded with about 60,000 tons of grain that the Egyptian government had already bought. The ship has been docked in Chornomorsk since the start of the Russian invasion in February.
In the months following the invasion, Ukraine persistently complained that Russian aggression in the Black Sea had crippled merchant shipping, with Ukrainian officials specifically citing the Emmakris III. Ukraine’s embassy in Cairo said on Facebook in April: “Russia is blocking a ship bound for Egypt loaded with Ukrainian wheat bought by Egypt.”
Russia said Ukrainian coastal water mining was responsible for the shipping disruption.
Now the Ukrainians themselves are preventing the ship from leaving. The prosecution in the Kyiv court case said that while the Emmakris III is ostensibly owned by a company in Dubai, its “real owner” is a Rostov-on-Don-based Russian shipping company called Linter.
CNN contacted Linder and the Russian Defense Ministry. At the time of publication, neither had responded.
Linter is also listed by shipping databases as the owner of the Emmakris II, which is allegedly involved in transporting grain stolen from the occupied parts of Ukraine. Linter’s website includes photos of Emmakris II in the Black Sea.
A weekly investigation by CNN based on satellite images, photos and shipping data shows that the Emmakris II spent several days docked in the port of Sevastopol in Russian-annexed Crimea in late June. It received several visits from a smaller ship that had loaded grain in the harbor — and which appears to have transferred its cargo to Emmakris II.
The smaller vessel, the M Andreev, also registered to Linter, had been photographed loading in Sevastopol days before it went alongside the Emmakris II, according to a shipping source in Sevastopol.
The source spoke on condition of anonymity for security reasons.
Shipping sources told CNN there has been frequent transshipment of grain onto bulk carriers that have been sitting off Sevastopol for several months.
Emmakris II launched from its anchorage on July 6 and was photographed passing the Bosphorus four days later.
Vessel tracking service MarineTraffic shows it transiting the Red Sea and into the Gulf of Oman, bound for the Iraqi port of Umm Qasr. But its transponder or tracker was disabled on July 22.
CNN previously reported on the illegal movement of Ukrainian grain from Kherson and Mykolaiv through the Crimean port of Sevastopol. Smaller ships sailed directly from Sevastopol in an attempt to sell the grain on the international market.
In several cases, CNN reported, ports in Egypt and Lebanon refused to accept the grain following appeals from the Ukrainian government. At least two cargoes ended up in a Syrian port.
Russian authorities in Crimea have acknowledged the trade but insist the grain is being bought legally. In June, the head of the Crimean administration, Sergei Aksionov, said that “grain from the liberated territories is transited to the Republic of Crimea and then goes to Sevastopol for sale.” Last month, Ukrainian authorities estimated that at least half a million tons of Ukrainian grain had been illegally shipped by the Russians.
Nic Robertson, Josh Pennington, Gianluca Mezzofiore and Katie Polglase contributed to this report.