Russia evacuates military equipment from Syria using sanctioned vessels, Ukrainian National Resistance Center says
Pravda Ukraine
The Sparta and Sparta II, cargo ships owned by the Russian Defence Ministry’s sanctioned logistics company Oboronlogistics, are involved in evacuating military equipment and weapons from Syria.
Source: National Resistance Center of Ukraine (NRC)
Details: The National Resistance Center reports that Oboronlogistics has been under sanctions since 2022 due to Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine.
The NRC obtained access to internal documents concerning Russian vessels involved in evacuating equipment from Syria, with the Sparta and Sparta II among the monitored ships.
The center notes that Russia’s use of civilian vessels to transport military equipment violates the Montreux Convention, which prohibits the passage of warships belonging to Black Sea states engaged in war through the Turkish straits.
Besides transporting weapons, Russia uses these “civilian dry-cargo ships” for espionage, monitoring NATO naval movements in the Baltic Sea, where Russia has intensified hybrid confrontations with Baltic states.
NRC experts found evidence of such activities during their review of Oboronlogistics’ documentation.
Notably, the crews of the Sparta and Sparta II were instructed to track NATO warships during the Aurora 23 military exercise.
Quote: “This is just a fraction of the information obtained. However, it illustrates that Russia’s actions in Ukraine are part of a broader strategy of aggression against the EU and NATO. Expelled from the Black Sea, Russia’s so-called ‘civilian’ ships, which for years supported the war in Syria, have immediately begun destabilising the situation in the Baltic Sea – and will continue to do so until met with force.”
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