Gas tankers Maestro and Venice (earlier Candy), which caught fire near Kerch Strait were involved in the illegal supplies of gas to Syria starting from 2016 as Ministry of Temporarily Occupied Territories and IDPs reported.
“According to the Office of Foreign Assets Control of the U.S. Treasury Department, the vessels Venice and Maestro were involved in the illegal supplies of gas to Syria starting from 2016,” the message said.
According to the international monitoring systems, Venice tanker left Russian port “Temryuk” on January 20 but the AIS (Automatic Identification System) did not work on the board. The same situation happened at Maestro tanker; the last information about the vessel was spotted by AIS on January 9, 2019.
Such actions of the foreign companies involved in the sea maritime transport aim to avoid responsibilities from the Ukrainian legislation and aim not to enter the list of delinquent companies, which can face the international legal sanctions.
It is noted that the AIS system allows “not only to respond to the ship accidents and provide aid to the victims but also to monitor the violation of the navigation or illegal crossing of the border”.
It is hard to establish the origin of the transported gas but according to the present information, Venice and Maestro vehicles were involved in the supply of the gas extracted from the Ukrainian shelf and other countries.
The mentioned ships earlier entered the closed ports of temporarily occupied Crimea and they are the violators of the regime of the temporarily occupied territories.
As we reported two vessels under the flag of Tanzania were on fire near Kerch Strait. The crew of both vessels evacuated on water after the fire occurred. 17 people were on the board of “Сandy” vessel (nine citizens of Turkey and eight citizens of India) and 14 people were on the board of “Maestro” vessel (seven citizens of Turkey and seven citizens of India).
Later it was reported that the number of the victims increased up to 14 people. The preliminary reason for the explosion at one of the vessels is the violation of the safety rules during the passage of the fuel by the sailors.
Earlier the SUROV cargo ship under the flag of Mongolia, which moved from Turkish port to Russian “Kavkaz” port, ran aground.
