HABIB NECCAR

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Arrest order for blacklisted Varyag

The Odesa Maritime District Court has ordered the arrest in absentia of the “Varyag,” which has been sailing between Turkey and occupied Crimea under the Panamanian flag. The arrest order was published on State Registry of Judicial Orders of Ukraine on Nov 4, 2016. The ship and its crew are to be arrested if it enters Ukrainian-controlled territorial waters, the order reads. According to the court, “Varyag” belongs to a company registered in St. Petersburg. The ship started to sail between the Crimean city Sevastopol and the Turkish port of Zonguldak in Aug 2015, and by the end of that year had made 18 voyages. After Turkey shot down a Russian SU-24 military jet just inside Turkish airspace near its border with Syria in December, the ship stopped sailing the route. It resumed sailing on Oct 28 from Kozachya Bay in Sevastopol directly to Zonguldak. Earlier in October, the “Varyag” was included on a blacklist of 260 commercial vessels that have visited seaports in occupied Crimea since the implementation of sanctions, according to the Maidan of Foreign Affairs monitoring group.