By John Konrad (gCaptain)
Today the Financial Times (FT) reported that an estimated 55 to 60 percent of Ukraine’s 80,000 seafarers are currently on ships and roughly 20% want to return to Ukraine to fight against the Russia.
“If most Ukrainian seafarers leave there’ll be no nationality able to take their positions,” said Oleg Grygoriuk, chair of the Marine Transport Workers Trade Union of Ukraine in an interview with FT. “This will be catastrophic for world shipping.”
Grygoriuk’s Union has urged its members to stay onboard for their own safety and to keep global logistics running.
Captain Oleksiy Luchyno, the Ukrainian captain who captured the world’s attention with his pasisonate plea for world support, suggested the number may be higher. He plans to extend his contract but “dares not ask his six Ukrainian colleagues about their plans” to reutrn to Ukraine and fight. “I try to avoid this question,” he said.
Ukrainian sailors who return home may have no choice but to fight. As the Russian assault has intensified, especially around the port cities where the many of Ukraine’s mariners live, the Ukrainian government enacted martial law, requiring men to stay in the country and either join the fight or face the prospect of getting drafted.
“This is the next problem the world is facing in the transport sea chain,” said Henrik Jensen, managing director at Danica Crewing Specialists, a Hamburg-based company with 1,200 Ukrainian workers.
Hong Kong-based Anglo-Eastern Univan Group said it has suspended crew changes for some of the 1,000 Ukrainians it employs partly because of this martial law requirement.
“It is very difficult for Ukraine sailors to find a way home, even if they want to,” one Ukraine sailor told gCaptain. “Many companies are refusing to send them home or refusing to help them arrange travel. We feel locked on the ship and live in fear we will be dispatched to deliver cargo to Russian controlled ports where we could be arrested.”
In response to the fear of arrest Oleksandr Kubrakov, Minister of infrastructure of Ukraine, asked the European Union to ban all foreign flagged ships from entering Russian Ports. “
“We consider it essential and necessary to identify all entities operating shipping and export terminals in Russia generally and in Russian Ports specifically in order that an effective ban on their operations can be imposed,” said Kubrakov. “We respectfully request, in particular, that all Russian ports and their shareholders be placed on the appropriate sanctions lists.”
Shipping Sanctions Are Confusing And Complicated
In addition to fears of arrest and difficulties faced returning home, Ukraine sailors also worry about losing their jobs because of sanctions. Many Russian-owned ships are registered, insured, crewed, or classified by American and European companies still trying to navigate sanctions. American companies, including LISCR and International Registries, manage the foreign flag ship registries that register some Russian-owned ships. Many Russian-owned ships are inspected by American and European classification societies.
Yale’s Jeffrey Sonnenfeld has compiled a list of companies that have pulled out of Russia but the list does not address what’s possibly the most important consideration for world trade: if the poorly understood tangle of companies that register, insure, manage, and class these ships will fire Russian clients.
Even registries and classification societies that are closing offices in Russia have not announced if they will take the next logical step and fully declassify Russian owned ships. The complicated ownership and structures in shipping means that Ukrainian seafarers aren’t even sure if the ships they work on are partially Russian-owned or carry Russian cargo. This all leaves them highly uncertain about their future.
“I could be helping Russia move material to make bombs,” said one Ukraining ship engineer in an online chat. “How would I know?”
Extend Contracts OR Return To Fight?
“1 in 5? That number is too low. Lots more than 1 in 5 want to return to fight and none of my guys want to move cargo or help Russians profit in any way,” the head of one Ukraine crewing agency told gCaptain. “I want to help them walk off any ship that’s helping Russia but it’s difficult to know. We are in constant fear a Russian inspector will arrive and arrest them in a foreign port.”
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When asked if her mariners want to fight in the war she said, “Yes but we don’t know how to get them all off and paid so I’m suggesting they keep working.” The same crewing agent, however, told gCaptain that she was dropping her infant child off with family in Italy then would be returning to help protect Odessa. “I can’t tell them to return and fight but that’s what I am doing for myself.”
Will Ukrainian sailors on ships carrying Russian cargo strike? She believes that most would, but first, they need more help and clarity about cargo ownership from the shipping community and how they will feed their families if they refuse to move Russian cargo.
Another international crewing executive told gCaptain that most Ukrainian sailors he works with have not striked because they were focused on helping their family and friends escape. Now that many families are in Western Europe they are looking for ways they can help Ukraine from the sea, and that may include walking off ships that have connections with Russian interests.
Extraordinary Measures
The UN’s International Maritime Organization held an IMO Extraordinary Council Session today where the Secretary-General indicated his commitment to take immediate action to realize a blue safe maritime corridor so seafarers could get out of Ukraine but the public information released made no mention of helping Ukrainian merchant mariners working aboard Russian owned ships or Ukrainian mariners wanting to return home to fight.
Some seafarers like Prokopenko, a Ukrainian chief mate working on a tugboat in the Pacific, say they don’t want to wait any longer, they want to return to Ukraine right now. “If we don’t do this, then there will be no home and there’s no point working at sea,” he said in an interview with FT.
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