Invaders Plan To Sell Metal Products Stolen In Mariupol To African And Asian Countries - Metinvest

The Metinvest group claims that the Russian occupiers plan to sell the group's metal products stolen in Mariupol to African and Asian countries that do not support the sanctions policy against the aggressor country - Russia.

The group announced this in a statement, Ukrainian News Agency reports.

"On the day the war began, the port of Mariupol had metallurgical products manufactured at Metinvest's enterprises - the Azovstal and Ilyich Iron and Steel Works. These metallurgical products were to be exported to buyers from different countries, including Spain, Italy, Belgium, Greece, Portugal and Turkey. 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 tons of metallurgical products” the statement said.

According to the statement, there is a high risk that these ships will be used by the occupiers to steal and illegally export metallurgical products belonging to Metinvest.

"Illegal actions to seize and resume the work of the Mariupol port clearly indicate that the occupiers can export these metallurgical products approximately to the ports of Rostov, Taganrog, Novorossiysk, Tuapse and occupied Sevastopol in order to further illegally sell the stolen products to African and Asian countries that do not support the sanctions policy against the aggressor country - 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 Metinvest products contain all the signs of piracy and violation of the laws and customs of war in the form of looting, which are serious international crimes," the statement said.

According to the statement, Metinvest will make every possible legal effort to bring all the perpetrators and their accomplices to strict legal liability.

As Ukrainian News Agency reported, a Russian cargo ship entered the Mariupol commercial sea port (Donetsk region), onto which the occupiers are loading Ukrainian metal.

Metinvest is preparing lawsuits against Russia for damages for the destruction of the Mariupol Ilyich Iron and Steel Works and Azovstal.

The main shareholders of the Metinvest group are SCM (71.24%) and the Smart Holding group (23.76%), which take part in the management of Metinvest on a partnership basis.

100% of SCM shares are owned by businessman Rinat Akhmetov.