Mining and metallurgical holding Metinvest of Rinat Akhmetov and Vadim Novinsky has said that the Russian Federation resorts to piracy in the form of theft of metal products, intended for foreign consumers, in the port of Mariupol.

According to a Friday press release of the company, the military operations of the troops of the aggressor country Russia, which invaded Ukraine on February 24, largely took place in Mariupol, which is now under Russian occupation.

"On the day the war began, the port of Mariupol had metallurgical products manufactured at the enterprises of the Metinvest group – the metallurgical plants Azovstal and Illych Iron and Steel Works. The specified metallurgical products should be exported to buyers from different countries, including Spain, Italy, Belgium, Greece, Portugal and Turkey," the company said.

At the time of the start of the military invasion, several commercial vessels were observed in the waters of the Mariupol port: Smarta (Liberia), Azov Concord (Malta), Azburg (Dominica), Tzarevna (Malta), Blue Star I (Panama) and Lady Augusta (Jamaica), which have already been loaded with 28,000 tonnes of metal products.

At the same time, there is a high risk that these vessels are used by the invaders for theft and illegal export of metallurgical products belonging to the Metinvest group.

"Illegal actions to seize and resume the work of the Mariupol port clearly indicate that the occupiers can export the specified metal products approximately to the ports in Rostov, Taganrog, Novorossiysk, Tuapse and the occupied Sevastopol to further illegally sell the stolen products to African and Asian countries that do not support the sanctions policy against the Russian Federation.

According to international law and the legislation of Ukraine, the actions of the representatives of the aggressor country in the armed seizure of merchant ships and products of the Metinvest group have all the signs of piracy and violation of the laws and customs of war in the form of looting, which are serious international crimes.

Metinvest Group will make every possible legal effort to bring all those responsible and their accomplices to strict legal liability, the company said in the statement.