Ukraine's Caspian Strike Hit Two Ships Already Named on US and UK Sanctions Lists
Ukraine's July 25 Caspian strikes hit the Port Olya 2 and the Begey, two hulls already designated by OFAC and OFSI, on a sea where a 2018 convention bars foreign warships from enforcing anything.
The July 25 raid on the Port Olya 2 and the Begey selected targets from a designation list, on a sea where a 2018 convention keeps every Western warship out.
Port Olya 2, Begey and a Molniya-class boat
The Security Service of Ukraine said its long-range drone operators struck three vessels in the Caspian Sea on July 25 along with the Filanovsky offshore oil platform. RFE/RL quoted the SBU statement naming a Russian missile boat and two cargo ships that "were under international sanctions and were used to transport military cargo between Iran and Russia." Ukrainska Pravda and Kyiv Post identified the cargo hulls as the Port Olya 2 and the dry cargo ship Begey, and the warship as a Project 12418 Molniya-class boat.
Both cargo ships came with paperwork attached. The Maritime Executive published IMO numbers for each, 9481881 for the Port Olya 2 and 8943210 for the Begey, and said they were sanctioned respectively by the US Treasury's OFAC and the UK's OFSI. Defense Express wrote that the Port Olya 2 belongs to the sanctioned Russian shipping company MG-Flot LLC and appears in Ukrainian Defense Intelligence's own War and Sanctions database, and that the Begey has carried ammunition, artillery shells, body armor and helmets while switching off its Automatic Identification System to conceal its movements.
Western governments had designated both hulls and then watched them keep sailing, because the Caspian has no Western enforcement mechanism and cannot acquire one. The 2018 Convention on the Legal Status of the Caspian Sea, signed by all five littoral states, bars foreign warships from the sea outright. The Caspian Policy Center, surveying sanctions-evading "dark port calls" between Iran's Anzali and Amirabad ports and Russia's Astrakhan and Olya, described a US Coast Guard presence there as inconceivable under that convention. A drone launched from Ukrainian territory is the one instrument that reaches the traffic those designations were written to stop.
Marcus Schuler
Marcus Schuler edits BattlePolicy, a daily defense-technology brief connecting the companies and capabilities behind modern war to the contest among Europe, the US, Russia, and China.