In March 26, the Turkish military neutralized a mine in the Bosphorus Strait, discovered by the sailors of one passing ship. The mine danger on one of the busiest sea arteries in the world forced the Turkish authorities to block traffic along the strait for several hours and monitor the water surface with the help of one of the minesweepers of the naval forces.
The first message about mine danger in Black Sea was received on February 18 from the hydrographic service of the NAVAREA system, and the captain of the Russian port of Sochi on the same day, in a warning to ship owners and captains of ships in the region, spoke about the threat of mines drifting in the Black Sea. According to him, to protect the sea approaches to the ports of Odessa, Chernomorsk, Yuzhny and Ochakov, Ukrainian ships allegedly installed 420 anchor mines of the YAM and YARM types, which were torn off by a storm and carried to the open sea.
Mine experts deny the possibility of such a drift. According to their experience, under these conditions, mines cannot cover a distance of almost 500 km without assistance.
It is worth recalling the recent stories of the Odessa shipwrecks, when, first, the Parallel tugboat, and then the Delphi bunker ship, were washed ashore on the Odessa beach as a result of a storm, and the barge (cigarette ark) was not far from the port of Chornomorsk.
In Romania, the command of the naval forces of this country ordered to urgently strengthen measures to monitor the maritime space. For this purpose, on March 20, the Romanian minesweeper Viceamiral Constantin Bilescu (274) left Constanta to search for mines, but so far he has not found any mines.
Therefore, it is now clear that the Ukrainians did not set mines off the coast of Odessa; if this happened, the Romanian minesweeper would have discovered them. This was a further provocation by the Russians.
They conceived a long-term blockade of the Black Sea ports, but accused Ukraine of laying mines to prevent amphibious landings on the Odessa coast. The Russians set up several mines, one of which was found on March 26 in the strait, and the second on March 28 on the sea border between Turkey and Bulgaria.
