Russia has seized four Danish ships that had been there before the Ukraine war. The shipping company considers this to be "unacceptable".
Munich - Russia seizes ships of the NATO country Denmark: Moscow has apparently seized four tugboats belonging to a subsidiary of the Danish shipping giant Maersk. This was announced by the group. Maersk had ceased operations in Russia after the start of the Ukraine war.
Maersk said in a statement on Wednesday (10 May): "On 25 April, we were informed that a local court had ordered that the smugglers should not be allowed to leave Russia and had also transferred the right for the smugglers to a third party." According to him, the four ships of the Maersk Svitzer unit were on duty under a long-term contract for the Sakhalin-2 oil and gas project in the Russian Far East. Now the Danish shipping company has to do without them. This is reported by the independent Russian newspaper The Moscow Times.
Danish shipping company Maersk: Situation with Russia "intolerable"
Maersk had been trying unsuccessfully to divest itself of the operation there for a year before the shipping company abandoned its efforts in mid-April and ceased operations. As Maersk stated, the port authorities of the country of ruler Vladimir Putin ordered the local crews and tugboats to continue anyway before then seizing the ships.
"Since then, all of Svitzer's employees in Russia have resigned from their jobs, and Svitzer no longer operates the four tugs," Maersk said, describing the situation as "intolerable." It goes on to say: "Efforts to resolve the matter are ongoing." In June, the Kremlin handed over control of Sakhalin-2, in which Japanese companies have a stake, to a Russian group.
Even apart from the Ukraine war: Maersk is struggling with a slump in sales
The Danish shipping company is currently struggling with slumps in sales and profits. According to the company, sales fell by 26 percent to 14.2 billion dollars (around 12.8 billion euros) in the first quarter of the new year. Profit before interest and taxes shrank by more than two-thirds to $2.3 billion. The background to this is the normalization of supply chains on the world's oceans, which have been disrupted for years, and the decline in demand for sea transport.
Maersk and its main rival MSC are by far the largest container shipping companies in the world. In order to become less dependent on developments on the oceans, the Danes have long been developing into a more complex logistics company that wants to offer all services of the entire supply chain from a single source.
Meanwhile, a frigate from Russia has been transferred to the Baltic Sea: The "Admiral Grigorovich" is considered a strong warship of President Putin and cannot return to Crimea. There is also growing concern around the world about attacks on critical infrastructure by Russia, including submarine cables. NATO is aware of the danger and is ramping up its defenses. (CGSC with dpa)