Russia exports tons of captured Ukrainian sunflower

The cargo ship GAM Express, sailing under the flag of Guinea-Bissau, resumed voyages to Crimea after a four-year break.

The ship was spotted in Feodosia, where it loaded on board a multi-ton shipment of sunflower seeds captured by the Russians in Melitopol, according to the investigation conducted by the SeaKrime project and the Kiborg association.

According to Report, investigators note that on December 18, 2023, this particular cargo ship was seen in a photograph taken in the port of Feodosia. Previously, the same ship, but under different names and flags, had already made voyages to the annexed Crimea.

“We carried out identification; for comparison, we used photos of the Feodosia port taken on December 18 last year and photos from a page on the MarineTraffic portal. GAM Express in 2017-2019 carried out illegal ship calls at the closed ports of annexed Crimea under the flags of Tanzania, Togo and Lebanon," the results of the investigation say.

The ship is already in the database of violators of the Monitoring Group of the Institute of Black Sea Strategic Studies and BlackSeaNews, although not under its latest name. The database also indicates that the cargo ship was stripped of the flags of Togo and Tanzania specifically for voyages to Crimea.