Enab Baladi – Diana Rahima

Over the past seven months, the movement of Syrian and Russian ships moving suspected stolen goods from Ukraine has increased, crossing through Syria to other countries.

Despite warnings from both the UN, US intelligence, and many other countries that there is credible evidence that Russian forces are stealing Ukrainian crops, the Syrian regime’s government has received a number of vessels coming from Ukraine.

Grain, oil, and weapons

Last June, Russian trucks were seen unloading Ukrainian grain silos and transporting their contents to Russian-controlled ports in Crimea, sources told CNN.

From February to June, Russian forces seized about 600,000 tons of Ukrainian grain, according to the Union of Ukrainian Agricultural Producers.

The Ukrainian Embassy in Lebanon told Reuters earlier that about 100,000 tons of wheat, worth more than 40 million US dollars, were shipped to Syria during the past three months.

Russia, for its part, has repeatedly denied allegations that its forces are stealing Ukrainian grain. Russian Deputy Prime Minister Victoria Abramchenko said Russia “does not ship grain from Ukraine.”

During the last period, specifically from last May, Enab Baladi followed leaked and circulated news about the movements of ships that passed by carrying wheat, scrap, and weapons.

Last May, the Bosphorus Strait Observer monitored via its official Twitter account the arrival of several Russian-flagged vessels carrying grain coming from the port of Sevastopol in Russian-occupied Crimea.

One of the cargo ships, Matros Pozynich, passed through Sevastopol on 28 April and was spotted on 2 May on the Bosphorus Strait carrying wheat.

The composition of the ship, its previous voyages, and the data received from the port of Sevastopol confirm the nature of the cargo. Its initial direction was to the port of Alexandria in Egypt, but it changed its destination to Beirut and then ended up at the port of Latakia.

Last June, the Ukrainian Embassy in Beirut said Russia had sent its Syrian ally an estimated 100,000 tons of wheat it had “stolen” from Ukraine since its “invasion” of the country, labeling the shipments a “criminal activity.”

In a statement received by Reuters, the embassy reported that the shipments were transported by the Russian-flagged Matros Pozynich, which docked at the Latakia seaport in Syria late last May.

On 8 August, two Russian tankers carrying oil arrived on Syrian shores, according to satellite images.

According to what the activist Samir, who is interested in checking military maps in Syria, had posted on his Twitter account, Russian tankers YAZ and SIG arrived respectively at the ports of Banias and Tartus.

On 29 July, the Bosphorus Observer’s account confirmed that two Russian oil tankers crossed the Bosphorus Strait in Istanbul, heading to Syria and coming from the port of Feodosia in Russian-held Crimea.

On 4 August, the Ministry of Transport of the Syrian regime announced the arrival of the Syrian ship La Odyssia to the port of Tartus and the beginning of unloading its cargo.

The ministry mentioned in a statement that, over the past few days, the ministry and the Syrian General Authority for Maritime Transport (the governmental entity that owns the ship), in cooperation with the regime’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs, had reached out to the Lebanese Ministry of Public Works and Transport and officials at the port of Tripoli to follow up on the issue of the vessel that was being held at the said port.

The statement explained that the reason for the ship’s departure to Lebanon was to deliver food supplies (flour) to a commercial company in Lebanon, after which it would continue its journey to unload its cargo in Syria.

The ministry noted that the Lebanese judge’s decision to release the vessel came after his “scrutiny of the paperwork and documentation relating to the vessel,” which refuted the Ukrainian Ambassador to Lebanon’s “allegations” that the cargo was stolen.

On 9 August, Bloomberg news website reported that a Russian merchant ship, subject to US sanctions, set off from Syria and crossed the Bosphorus Strait towards Russia, carrying military equipment.

The website’s report, quoting European intelligence sources, said that the Russian ship Sparta-2 was tracked as it headed from the port of Tartus to the port of Novorossiysk on the Black Sea, carrying military vehicles used in the Russian war on Ukraine.

The ship was seen in Syria loading military vehicles. It was also observed crossing the Bosphorus Strait. It was later identified in the port of Novorossiysk, carrying 11 vehicles.

On 18 August, the ship SV Konstantin, which set off from the Russian-occupied Crimea on 6 June, arrived in the Black Sea according to data from the ship tracking website MarineTraffic.

The Russian-flagged SV Konstantin (Planet Labs PBC)

Is there any control?

In a private briefing via telephone with the Assistant Secretary of State for Economic and Business Affairs, Ramin Toloui, Enab Baladi inquired about the possibility of finding a way to monitor maritime transport and prevent the smuggling of Ukrainian goods by sea.

“We’ve seen the reports of Russia seizing Ukrainian supplies, including the records of the maritime automatic identification system that indicate that Russian commercial cargo vessels are departing from near Ukraine with their cargo holds full of grain, and we find those reports to be credible,” Toloui replied. 

“Instead of being stolen by Russian forces, that grain should be in ports in the Middle East and North Africa going to feed the populations that need the food, foodstuffs, the grain, and other agricultural commodities that are on those ships,” he added.

Toloui did not mention the existence or search for a mechanism to monitor maritime transport.

Syria is on the white list

Counsel and expert in maritime laws, Adnan Hajj Omar told Enab Baladi that the Syrian ships that are currently being used are ships owned by the General Authority for Maritime Transport, a public sector company.

The authority owns three ships (Souria, La Odyssia, and Phoenicia), and their itinerary is within the Mediterranean and the Black Sea.

On the subject of stolen wheat, the bill of lading should be viewed to find out the party conducting the shipping, which is likely to be the same who stole the goods and sold them to another party, but that may not be the case. It is, therefore, not possible to determine whether the goods shipped on Syrian vessels were stolen or not without access to official shipment documents, according to Hajj Omar.

The counsel explained that the Syrian government-owned vessels bear its flag, and each vessel was classified according to their number. Each flag also has a classification, as listed by the International Maritime Organization (IMO).

Hajj Omar said that turning off the radars of ships while they are on the move to render it impossible to identify its whereabouts is against the laws of the organization.

According to Hajj Omar, the IMO puts Syria on the White List, meaning that the IMO, as one of the United Nations organizations, recognizes Syria and puts it on that list.

Enab Baladi contacted the International Maritime Organization via email to find out the circumstances of Syria’s continued presence on the white list but received no reply.

The International Maritime Organization (IMO) has not periodically monitored the flag state for two years (Syria), “meaning sending experts to the concerned country to prove that the state is working in accordance with the organization’s standards,” according to Hajj Omar.

If it was established that the vessels’ radars had been turned off, this is in itself a legal violation of maritime organization conventions and treaties; that requires the maritime organization to remove Syria or any country that commits similar offenses from the white list.

Speaking of whether Turkey can take any action and stop the ships that turn off the navigation devices while passing through the Bosphorus, it is only entitled to stop ships that threaten peace and security, as well as ships of countries with which it is at war. In the Syrian case, we must know what the Turkish description of relations with Syria is, even though all the data on the Syrian ground indicate that Syria and Turkey are at war, according to Hajj Omar.

However, the expert counsel considers that the maritime organization has the greatest responsibility to ensure the application of maritime laws by the organization’s member states.

He added that the standard that countries abide by is the flag, as Britain, for example, does not allow the entry of ships carrying the Syrian regime’s flag.

Meanwhile, the UK recently announced that it will offer significant tariff cuts to eight countries, including Syria, in an effort to lower import costs and help the economies of developing countries.

The British Department of International Trade revealed on 16 August that it will unilaterally offer a significant reduction in tariffs to a number of developing countries, including eight countries that will be added to the “trade preferences” plan.

Under this reduction, Britain is dropping tariffs on 85% of goods traded with listed countries in order to reduce import costs for British consumers and help boost developing countries’ economies.

Dealing with the products, not with the regime

The British-based economic researcher, Zaki Mahshi, told Enab Baladi that Britain’s principle is not to deal with the regime while dealing with unsanctioned Syrian products is not considered a problem for the British.

Syria is one of the world’s poorest countries, and therefore trade preference-tariffs apply to it in a way that does not contradict the British government’s policy against the Syrian regime, according to Mahshi.

On 26 July, Britain included nine figures and two security companies in Syria on the sanctions list for supporting the Syrian regime or recruiting “mercenaries” and sending them to fight alongside Russian forces in Ukraine.

In 2015, the US Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) included a number of Syrian entities participating in maritime trade, which prohibits American persons from doing trade with these entities, namely the Syrian General Directorate of Ports, the Latakia Port General Company, the Tartus Port General Company, the Syrian General Authority for Maritime Transport, the Syrian General Shipping Agencies Company (Shipco), and the Syrian Chamber of Commerce.

The Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) of the US Department of the Treasury administers and enforces economic and trade sanctions based on US foreign policy and national security goals.

The office also identified eight other (non-US) entities and seven ships as helping the Syrian government financially by delivering shipments of liquefied petroleum gas and gas oil through the port of Banias, which OFAC described as a “government-controlled port.”