Russia’s ambassador to the United States said Thursday that, despite claims to the contrary by the United States, Russia has no plans to attack civilian ships in the Black Sea.
Moscow announced on Wednesday that it would consider all ships traveling to Ukrainian ports to be potential carriers of military cargo and their flag countries to be parties to the conflict on the Ukrainian side. This came after Russia renounced a one-year-old agreement to grant safe passage to ships transporting Ukrainian grain despite the war.
Ambassador Anatoly Antonov stated on the embassy’s Telegram account, “Attempts to attribute to Russia the planning of certain attacks on civilian ships are pure fabrication…We view the United States’ statements as an attempt to conceal its own destructive activities, which are aimed at de facto sabotaging the implementation of the related Istanbul agreements.”
On Monday, Moscow pulled out of the agreement that allowed Ukraine to ship grain out of its Black Sea ports in an effort to ease a global food shortage.
Russia claimed that the simultaneous memorandum signed in Istanbul had been disregarded. The goal was to make it easier for Moscow to ship out its own grain and fertilizer in the face of Western sanctions imposed in response to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.