Dias Marine Consultants Co Ltd, our correspondents in Ukraine, has provided us with the following information:

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All Ukrainian ports work in the usual manner without stoppages.

War actions
Yesterday in mass media there appeared information that joined forced of the Russian army and rebels had almost blocked access roads to Mariupol port, but it turned out to be a mere canard. In Mariupol city and in Mariupol Commercial port the situation is under control of the Ukrainian authorities. This was also confirmed to us by our representative in Mariupol, Mr. Andrey Kucher. The port still functions in the usual way, the ships are being loaded and discharged, but the freight flow, the total quantity of the ships in the port has decreased more than by half.

Despite the fact that the situation in Mariupol is quite stable we still do not recommend crews of foreign ships at Mariupol port to visit the city.

Port of Kerch
As you may remember from our previous reports the Crimean ports are not the structural parts of the Ukrainian economics right now.
We have received many requests to describe the situation in the port of Kerch. We may say that it is rather calm and stable. We have not heard of any cases of piracy, robbery or ships assaults. Now mainly Russian vessels are handled in this port. International shipping has almost died away in this region, though some foreign ships enter Crimean ports, Kerch in particular, from time to time.

As to the general criminogenic situation in Kerch town we must say that it has always been rather tough and we do not think that anything had changed for the better with the coming of the Russian authorities, or those persons who represent them. Actually, it may even be worse now.

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