In the first half of January, only eight ships docked at Ukraine’s Sea of Azov ports – half the average of the same period 2016-2018, Andriy Klymenko, chairman of the Maidan of Foreign Affairs, tells Ukrinform. “There are now [shipping] companies that indicate on their sites that they are not sending their vessels to Libya, Iran and the Sea of Azov,” he says, referring Mariupol and Berdyansk ports. He cites research by BlackSeaNews, that shows average waiting times for Ukraine-bound ships to traverse the Kerch Strait from the Black Sea quadrupled – from 28.4 hours in July to 124.2 hours in November.
In the first half of January, only eight ships docked at Ukraine’s Sea of Azov ports – half the average of the same period 2016-2018
