Freight ship delivering raw materials to Crimea broke in half in Bosphorus
On August 27, 2017, at the entrance to the Bosphorus Strait, the Turkish dry cargo ship Leonardo broke in half, reported BSNews. The Leonardo was frequently used to transport ilmenite (titanium-iron oxide mineral) for the Titan plant in the Crimea, via the Kamysh-Burun port in Kerch.
The vessel was sailing without cargo from Rostov-on-Don to the Turkish port of Tuzla. It was returning from a delivery on August 8, 2017, when it carried another 3000 tons of ilmenite ore from the Turkish port of Samsun to the port of Kamysh-Burun. Currently, the rear part of the ship is stranded on the Turkish coast where it was towed by Turkish rescuers.
The Leonardo is a 42-year-old, Soviet-built, Sormovskiy type dry cargo ship sold by Ukrrichflot to the Turkish owner in 2011. It has been on the United States’ Syrian blacklist since August, 2015.
The ship is not the first sanctions violator to meet an untimely end. On July 29, 2017 another sanctions violator, the Romanian dry cargo ship Anda, also sank about 45 km south of Foros.