The owner of a general cargo ship hit by a Russian missile on 6 October said he will keep trading in Ukraine, despite Moscow’s wrongful attack on his vessel.
“We will continue, this is our business,” said Jamil el Khatib, owner of Piraeus and Beirut-based AK Shipping.
Speaking to TradeWinds in Piraeus on Friday, el Khatib reiterated that Moscow’s claim that the 6,273-dwt general cargo ship Paresa (built 1992) had been a military target that was carrying weapons into Ukraine was “false”.
“We have been shipping grain out of Ukraine for years and have documents to prove the Paresa was fixed to carry corn,” el Khatib said.
A port state control inspection of the ship in Yuzhny on Thursday found no evidence to put its civilian credentials in doubt, the owner added.
Despite some damage, the Paresa remains seaworthy. AK Shipping is looking for a Black Sea yard to repair its cargo hold.
“We will most likely do it in Turkey or Romania,” said el Khatib.
As TradeWinds reported, none of the crew’s 12 Syrian and Egyptian seafarers came to harm.
Crew and stevedores had been warned of the air raid about a quarter of an hour before the missile struck at 02:00 local time on Sunday.
The vessel, which had arrived ballasting from Turkey on 30 September, had been loading corn.
When the missile struck, the Paresa was at between 70% and 80% of its capacity.
Talks about insurance coverage for the damaged cargo are ongoing with the charterer.
Companies trading in the area have seen insurance costs rise since Russia intensified attacks this week on port infrastructure and vessels.
War risk premia have increased by about 0.2 percentage points, according to El Khatib.
To be able to shoulder any further cost, the owner and operator of about 15 small handy and cargo ships could consider limiting the insured value of its vessels.
Another measure would be to avoid sending multiple vessels to Ukraine at once, as AK Shipping did last week when it had three ships there at the same time.
“We plan to send the same amount of vessels but we will space them out to minimise risk,” El Khatib said.
AK Shipping was servicing the Ukraine grain trade before Russia invaded the country.
Following a hiatus amid a total port blockade in the first months of the war, the company quickly resumed trading within the framework of the United Nations-led Black Sea Grain Initiative in August 2022.
AK Shipping then continued its business in Ukraine when Russia pulled out of the UN scheme in August 2023 and Kyiv set up its own maritime corridor.
‘No justification’
Russian attacks on Ukrainian port infrastructure in the greater Odesa region and the Danube have been frequent throughout the war.
Direct strikes on ships, however, had been rare until last month.
Since then, five vessels have been damaged — four in port and one at sea, as TradeWinds reported. At least four of them escaped critical damage.
For the first time, Russia has acknowledged targeting two of the vessels, one of which was the Paresa.
Ukrainian officials and observers have interpreted the Russian avowal as a conscious effort by Moscow to obstruct Kyiv’s maritime trade, which has been going surprisingly smoothly since the end of the UN scheme with more than 2,500 voyages recorded.
Arsenio Dominguez, the International Maritime Organization’s secretary general, has condemned the Russian raids.
“There’s no justification for any attack against international shipping, regardless of motivation or cause,” Dominguez said in a statement, adding that he was “ready to sit with all parties to facilitate dialogue”.
Ukraine has only once attacked a Russian oil tanker in the Black Sea, claiming it was carrying fuel for Moscow’s armed forces.
