Moscow, Mar. 31, (dpa/GNA) - Russia has accused Ukraine of detaining 68 foreign ships in its Black Sea ports near Odessa.
The ships belong to China, Turkey, Switzerland and Greece, among others, Defence Ministry spokesman Igor Konashenkov said in Moscow on Thursday.
Russia was opening a safe corridor every day so they could leave Ukrainian territorial waters, he said.
According to the crews, however, the Ukrainian authorities had banned foreign ships from leaving “under threat of immediate sinking,” a claim that could not be independently verified.
At the same time, the ministry rejected accusations from Kiev that it had laid sea mines in the Black Sea, and instead accused Ukrainian units of deploying around 370 mines in the Black Sea.
About 10 explosive devices had come loose from their moorings and were now floating in the western part of the sea, it said.
The Ukrainian Foreign Ministry had previously blamed Russia for the mines drifting in the Black Sea, saying they had been seized in the Crimean port of Sevastopol in 2014 when Russian troops annexed the Crimean Peninsula.
GNA