On Tuesday, the British Defense Ministry backed the Ukrainian claim that Ukrainian forces sunk a Russian tugboat with US-made Harpoon missiles, an incident Russia has not commented on.
Ukraine said it sank the Russian tugboat Vasiliy Bekh on Friday and released a video of what it said was the vessel being hit with two missiles. The Vasiliy Bekh was designed for rescue operations, but Ukraine claims it was transporting a missile system to Snake Island, which is located in the Black Sea and was captured by Russia early on in the war.
The British Defense Ministry assessed that Ukraine “almost certainly” targeted the Vasiliy Bekh and used US-made Harpoon missiles. The claim is still not confirmed, but the incident marks the first time Kyiv has been said to use the Western-provided anti-ship missiles.
Denmark was the first known Western country to transfer a Harpoon system to Ukraine, which the US facilitated. The US pledged to send Ukraine two more Harpoon systems to Kyiv as part of the massive $1 billion weapons package that President Biden announced last week.
Harpoon missiles are capable of hitting targets over 100 miles away, putting many Russian ships in the Black Sea in range, and significantly widening the area where Ukraine can use Western-provided arms. As the US and NATO continue to escalate military aid to Ukraine, the risk of provoking a response from Moscow grows.
Will be important to confirm this. If true, the newly opened shipping corridor from Mariupol into Black sea is in danger.
Ukraine mined all its ports albefore the war – as a preventive measure, so Russia could not sail into ports. By doing so, Ukraine blocked over 70 foreign ships from exiting their ports. They are still stuck there.
The port Russia had taken, Mariupol, has been de-mined, and a corridor for safe navigation out of Black Sea established. Today. the first foreign ship left Mariupol fotmd the Rusdian port of Novosiirsk on Azov Sea in order to get resupplied, get crew for journey.
The botyom line is — UN coordination with Rusdia and Turkey was based on secure corridors for exportinng wheat from Ukraine. The moment UN reached the deal — and asked Ukraine to demine Odessa, interest stopped.
After massive global cry to save world from hunger —
and after solution has been developed, suddenly no more world hunger.
Instead a threat is actually being issued to all commercial ships forcibly detained – that nust because Russia demined Mariupol and secured shilling lanes – they are not safe from West supplied weapons.
It is hard to find a good military reasons for taking shots at shipping. Or even military ships. Ukraine is losing war on the land. It already lost Kherson, Zaporozhe, Mariupol and are losing Donbas. Russia can tben pick undefended low hanging friut. Be that Odessa or Kharkov. And transit between West and Kiev may also collapse.
How are hapoons helping.
Have any commercial ships from Mariupol been sunk? All the mines around Mariupol should be gone too, so what’s stopping the ships from leaving?
According to the Dutch newspaper “De Volkskrant” a Turkish-flagged ship laden with grain has left the port of Mariupol. The article does not tell us what the destination of the grain is.
This shipment was made possible when a Turkish delegation went to Moscow to negotiate this trade. The Ukrainian government is furious because the Russians get paid for Ukrainian grain but, apparently, has not tried to sink a ship registered in a NATO country.
It seems to me that the farmer who grew the grain should be the one who gets paid. So how do Ukraine or Russia profit from these sales?
Perhaps we are talking about the shipping costs/payments rather than the cost of the grain itself?
I believe Putin, in St. Pete speech, said that Russian grain was moving freely. Also that Russia for its part was perfectly willing to provide safe shipping for Ukraine grain. Ukraine however was still unwilling to de-mine its harbors. But Putin also said it was a propaganda crisis, that the % of grain in question was only a small fraction of average world supply.
I think the problem was that Ukraine wanted international guarantees that the Russian navy wouldn’t attack after they removed the mines from their harbours.
Looking at the map, I don’t see how any area currently under Ukraine control could be within missile range of a ship traveling from Mariupol to the Turkish Straits.
Also, Do you know if Russia also relies on the Black Sea for significant exports of grain grown in Russia?
I can’t think of a better way for Ukraine to alienate Europe and the US than to sink a ship carrying grain with a $1.4 million missile provided by Europe and the US.
But, I also can’t think of why anyone would give them one in the first place.
So they hit a tugboat. Tugboats don’t have sophisticated AD defenses. This is the best Ukraine can do. They tried another assault on Snake Island the other day with missiles and artillery – failed miserably, all missiles shot down.
On March 26 U.S. President Joe Biden called for regime change in Russia: Speaking in Warsaw, Poland, President Biden said of Russian President Vladimir Putin: “For God’s sake, this man cannot remain in power.”
Russia will never forget or forgive this. This war that the Western powers started will not end in the Ukraine, they will come for us all. We declared war on Russia, a war they will now happily play out to its bitter end.