The ship with grain arrested in Odesa port had Crimean owners

Recently, a Russian vessel from the "shadow fleet" was arrested in the port of Odesa, illegally transporting Ukrainian agricultural products from the annexed Crimea. The ship has repeatedly changed its name and owners.

This was reported by Krym. Realii.

According to the investigation, in January 2021, the ship loaded more than 6,900 tons of Ukrainian wheat at the Sevastopol Commercial Sea Port and exported it to an African country. In December 2025, the ship's captain, who was in charge of the ship at the time, was suspected of violating the rules of entry and exit to the temporarily occupied territory under Part 2 of Article 332-1 of the Criminal Code of Ukraine.

To conceal the ship' s origin and avoid international sanctions, it was repeatedly re-registered to shell companies and changed its name. In December 2025, the cargo ship flying the flag of an African state arrived again at the port of Odesa, where, at the request of prosecutors, the court ordered its arrest. The procedures for transferring the ship to the management of the National Asset Recovery and Management Agency (ARMA) are currently underway.

Official reports from the SBU and prosecutors in Crimea and Sevastopol do not specify the name of the detained vessel, but Ukrainian investigative journalists found it out. Kateryna Yaresko, a journalist with the SeaKrime project of the Peacemaker Center, said that the vessel was previously called PERESVET (IMO: 8919879) and in 2019-2021 transported grain, crushed stone, and ilmenite to the annexed Crimea.

According to VesselFinder, the vessel with IMO 8919879 is now called GLADIUS and flies the flag of Guinea-Bissau. On November 30, it was spotted near the Romanian port of Sulina after leaving the port of Istanbul. Perhaps after that, the automatic identification system AIS was turned off. At the same time, the Marine Traffic service indicates a different name - AMINAH STAR, last location - the port of Sulina, Romania, December 2, flag of Guinea-Bissau.

The vessel, which has changed its name several times, was built in 1992 at the J.J. Sietas KG shipyard in Hamburg (Germany). The length is 107.43 m, the width is 19.57 m, the draft is 8.29 m, and the deadweight is 7912 tons. Until 1999, the vessel was called ANNEGRET, then CALYPSO, BBC FRISIA, and in 2007 - ROELOF, and all this time it was flying the German flag.

On January 1, 2019, the bulk carrier was renamed PERESVET under the flag of Cameroon, with Novorossiysk as its home port. The vessel was owned by SEVASTOPOL TRANSPORT SYSTEMS from Sevastopol, whose director was Svetlana Merezhko, a member of the Board of Directors of Sevastopol Maritime Bank, which founded the company.

Later, the vessel was re-registered to PERESVET SHIPPING SA (IMO: 6084133) and then to ANSHIP LLC (IMO: 5114569), both companies registered in Moscow. The CEO of Anship was Sergei Dobryakov, who also worked for AnRusTrans JSC, which carries out illegal transportation through the Kerch ferry crossing.

In 2022, the vessel changed its name to AYANA STAR under the flag of Palau, remaining assigned to the port of Novorossiysk. Since 2019, it has repeatedly called at the ports of annexed Crimea.

Examples include August 2019, when the dry cargo ship loaded grain near the Avlita terminal in Sevastopol. After passing the Bosphorus Strait and entering the Black Sea, the ship's AIS system was turned off, which is prohibited by shipping regulations due to the risk of collisions. In late August, PERESVET delivered the cargo to the Turkish port of Iskenderun.

In October 2019, Lloyd's List announced sanctions against 46 foreign vessels for illegal calls to the ports of annexed Crimea, including PERESVET. As a result, Cameroon was forced to remove it from the national maritime register.

In 2020, the vessel repeatedly transported crushed stone from the Turkish port of Giresun to Sevastopol and Ukrainian ilmenite from Khopa to Feodosia for the Crimean Titan plant in Armyansk. In 2020-2021, PERESVET also delivered grain from Sevastopol to Libya and Egypt.

In August, the Main Intelligence Directorate detected 42 vessels of the Russian"shadow fleet" transporting Russian oil, as well as grain and coal from the temporarily occupied Ukrainian territories, including Crimea.

Анна Бальчінос