A vessel belonging to Russia’s shadow fleet was detained in Odessa.

A dry cargo ship arrived in Odessa under the flag of an African country to transport a shipment of steel pipes.

Law enforcement officers detained a foreign vessel in Odesa that was part of Russia’s “shadow” fleet and was illegally transporting Ukrainian agricultural products from temporarily occupied Crimea, according to the SBU press service.

According to investigators, the ship’s owner was under National Security and Defense Council sanctions and, to circumvent the restrictions, regularly changed its name and formal beneficiaries from third countries.

“SBU officers exposed a Russian-controlled dry cargo ship in the Odessa commercial port, where it had arrived under the flag of an African country to transport a shipment of steel pipes. It was established that, on the eve of the full-scale war, the vessel docked in Sevastopol at least seven times to illegally export agricultural products for the Russian Federation,” the security service reported.

As reported, at the end of January 2021, a dry cargo ship illegally transported nearly 7,000 tons of grain from the Ukrainian peninsula to North Africa.

At the time of the arrest, the captain and 16 other crew members, citizens of several Middle Eastern countries, were on board. During a search, voyage plans, pilot cards, cartographic materials, and radio communication logs were found, all containing evidence of illegal calls at ports in temporarily occupied territories of Ukraine.Read also:

Criminal proceedings have been initiated under four articles of the Criminal Code of Ukraine: Part 3 of Article 110-2 (financing of actions committed with the aim of violently changing or overthrowing the constitutional order or seizing state power, changing the borders of the territory or state border of Ukraine); Part 1 of Article 111 (high treason); Article 291 (violation of transport regulations); Parts 2 and 3 of Article 332-1 (violation of the procedure for entry into and exit from the temporarily occupied territory of Ukraine).

The vessel is currently under arrest for subsequent transfer to the National Agency of Ukraine for Detection, Tracing and Management of Assets Obtained from Corruption and Other Crimes (ARMA).

The Office of the Prosecutor General of Ukraine clarified that the Russian vessel was detained at the Odesa seaport. In December 2025, the captain was served with a notice of suspicion for violating the rules for entry into and exit from the temporarily occupied territory (Part 2, Article 332-1 of the Criminal Code of Ukraine).

According to the State Border Guard Service of Ukraine, investigative actions on the vessel in question were conducted on December 6 by operatives of the State Border Guard Service’s Marine Guard, together with representatives of the Security Service of Ukraine in the Autonomous Republic of Crimea and the Security Service of Ukraine in the Odessa region, under the procedural guidance of the prosecutor’s office in the Autonomous Republic of Crimea and the city of Sevastopol.

“This isn’t the first time law enforcement has drawn attention to this vessel’s activities. Back in 2020, the State Border Guard Service’s Marine Guard reported a crime to the Crimean Prosecutor’s Office regarding its calls at ports in the temporarily occupied territory,” border guards report.

Based on a ruling by the Dniprovsky District Court of Kyiv on December 5, 2025, the vessel was seized. Following the completion of the investigation, the vessel was transferred to temporary storage at the Odessa Commercial Seaport.

The detention of a vessel belonging to the Russian shadow fleet that was transporting stolen Ukrainian grain.

In April of this year, a vessel belonging to the Russian “shadow fleet” was detained in Ukrainian internal waters. It was carrying grain stolen from the temporarily occupied territories of the Zaporizhzhia and Kherson regions. Specifically, at the end of 2024, the dry cargo ship removed 5,000 tons of wheat stolen in southern Ukraine from the port of Sevastopol. To conceal the occupiers’ crimes, the vessel was conducting an illegal raid under the flag of an Asian country.

(C)UNIAN 2025