Russian Ships Barred From Docking At Ports Worldwide

The United Kingdom has banned Russian ships from calling on its ports, and the European Union (EU) is about to do the same. The world’s three largest shipping lines will no longer call on Russian ports. Ukraine’s ports are closed.

Photo Insert: A Gazprom oil tanker

Russia’s invasion of Ukraine is wreaking havoc on global shipping, which transports 80 percent of the world’s trade, Elizabeth Braw, a columnist at Foreign Policy (FP) wrote.

Ships are now sailing the oceans unable to deliver and pick up cargo, while some 140 other merchant vessels are stuck in Ukrainian ports, at risk of coming under fire and with food and other provisions running low. The rest of the world should care about their desperate situation—if nothing else because the cargo they carry is crucial to our daily lives.

On March 1, the crude oil tanker NS Champion suddenly encountered an urgent problem. It was steering toward Scotland’s Orkney oil terminal. Like other cargo vessels, the NS Champion sails under a Liberian flag, but it is owned by Sovcomflot, Russia’s largest shipping company, and on Feb. 24 the US government had placed the company under sanctions.

Even so, the tanker had the right to make its next port call, because sanctions don’t affect ships that are already en route. But before it arrived, the British government announced it was immediately closing U.K. ports to Russian vessels.

The Champion had to sail on, oil undelivered, to its next point of call, Denmark’s Port of Skagen.

Very soon, it won’t be able to deliver its oil there, either. The EU is expected to follow the UK’s lead and close its ports to vessels owned or operated by Russia or sailing under its flag. Canada already has. Switzerland-based Mediterranean Shipping Co., the world’s largest shipping company, has suspended all container traffic to and from Russia.

So have the other two members of global shipping’s top three, Denmark-based Maersk and France’s CMA CGM. Singapore-based Ocean Network Express and Germany’s Hapag-Lloyd had already made similar announcements.

The companies will only make humanitarian deliveries, usually understood as food and medication.

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