Ukraine has asked Israel to seize a ship carrying grain that Kiev claims was stolen from areas occupied by Russia, the country’s prosecutor general announced on Wednesday, after the shipment triggered a diplomatic dispute between the two countries, reports Reuters.
Ukraine and Israel exchanged accusations on Tuesday, with Kiev stating that it has repeatedly urged Israel, diplomatically, to take action regarding the said ship. Israel accused Kiev of “diplomacy on Twitter”.
The Attorney General of Ukraine, Ruslan Kravchenko, stated in a message published on the Telegram messaging app, that the cargo ship, Panormitis, headed towards the Israeli port of Haifa with cereals “part of which were delivered” from Ukrainian regions occupied by the Russian army. The cereals had been previously loaded from another ship, he said.
“The Ukrainian side asks its Israeli partners to seize the ship and its cargo, to conduct a search, to confiscate the ship’s and cargo’s documentation, to take grain samples and to interrogate the crew members”, Kravchenko specified.
The Israeli Foreign Minister, Gideon Saar, who previously stated that Ukraine had provided no evidence to support its claims, wrote on Wednesday on the X social network that the authorities in Kiev had submitted the ship’s detention request late Tuesday evening.
“We would have expected the legal request to be submitted before being posted on Twitter. You chose otherwise, for your own reasons. The request is now being reviewed by the competent authorities,” Saar wrote.
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