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Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy on Tuesday signed a decree enforcing a decision by the country’s National Security and Defense Council to impose sanctions on 56 maritime vessels accused of exporting Ukrainian grain from Russian-occupied territories.
He said the move marks “a new direction” in Ukraine’s sanctions policy.
“It’s an important step—we imposed sanctions on maritime vessels that transported Ukrainian grain from the occupied territories… We will increase this pressure. Every Russian crime must receive an appropriate response, and sanctions are the quickest response,” Zelenskyy said in a video address.
The decree enacts a National Security and Defense Council decision that backed proposals from the Security Service of Ukraine to target ships allegedly involved in the Kremlin-organized grain trade from seized Ukrainian lands. The Cabinet, central bank, and security agencies were directed to ensure the sanctions’ implementation and effectiveness, while the Foreign Ministry was instructed to inform the European Union, United States, and other partners and seek parallel measures abroad.
Several of the sanctioned vessels were previously identified in a major October investigation by OCCRP and its Syrian partner SIRAJ, which reported that the Finikia, Laodicea, and Souria—once owned by the Syrian government under former dictator Bashar al-Assad—had quietly been transferred in 2023 to an offshore company in the Seychelles.
According to sales contracts and corporate records found by SIRAJ and cited in the investigation, the Seychelles firm was controlled by a figure linked to Assad’s inner circle. At least two of the ships were sold by a Syrian state agency for just $1 each, transactions indicating that the vessels may have been appropriated by regime insiders ahead of Assad’s ouster.
Those ships later appeared in Russia-controlled ports on the Black Sea, where they allegedly loaded grain taken from occupied Ukrainian territory. Ukrainian public sanctions registries confirm that Finikia, Laodicea, and Souria are now officially under Kyiv’s restrictions.
Ukraine says the latest measures aim to disrupt the maritime infrastructure supporting Russia’s war economy and to pressure international partners to tighten enforcement against ships participating in what Kyiv calls the theft and laundering of its grain.
