“The countries of the flag of such courts will be considered to be involved in the Ukrainian conflict on the side of Ukraine,” the Russian Defense Ministry said in a statement. And thus, the Kremlin announced that it would destroy all such civilian vessels.
In addition, the Russian Federation announced that “a number of maritime areas in the northwestern and southeastern parts of the international waters of the Black Sea have been declared temporarily dangerous for navigation.”
In fact, we are talking about Russia declaring an unrestricted naval war, as the Third Reich did when it began to sink all ships heading to the UK. This is a violation of the rules of warfare at sea, and this episode was brought to the attention of the Nuremberg trials and indictments.
On the night of July 19, Russia struck at the port infrastructure of Odesa to disable facilities that provided transshipment of grain and other food products. The attack used an X-59M2 missile with a cluster munition, most likely an anti-personnel element.