{"text":[[{"start":10.84,"text":"One region in the world has become more deadly than any other for merchant sailors, and it is not the Strait of Hormuz."}],[{"start":17.52,"text":"More sailors died in the Black Sea than in any other body of water this year, outstripping fatalities in the Gulf, which has garnered more attention worldwide. A critical corridor for global grain supplies and Russian oil, the Black Sea is riskier for vessels than the Middle East, shipowners and seafaring groups said."}],[{"start":36,"text":"Crew in oil tankers, cargo ships and grain carriers entering the sea close to the EU and Nato must run a gauntlet of attacks by drones, missiles or explosive-laden boats as Russia and Ukraine step up their battle for the vital route. Some estimates put the number of attacks in the Black Sea as more than six times higher than in the Gulf."}],[{"start":55.16,"text":"“For me, the Black Sea and calling [at] Ukrainian ports is near suicidal,” said Oleg Grygoriuk, chair of the Marine Transport Workers’ Trade Union of Ukraine. “The general feeling is that there is a life risk threat all the time.”"}],[{"start":68.68,"text":"More than 570 vessels have been struck in the Black Sea this year, killing at least 40 sailors, according to maritime security company Ambrey and the International Maritime Organization. That compares to 24 confirmed fatalities in the Hormuz."}],[{"start":83.28,"text":"Some ships have been hit in the crossfire of attacks on ports, while others were deliberately targeted. During the third quarter, attacks averaged more than four a day, Ambrey said."}],[{"start":93.54,"text":"Reporting of attacks in both regions remains patchy, making the true scale of the damage difficult to establish."}],[{"start":99.76,"text":"Some shipping companies are prepared to brave the risks of carrying oil out of the Middle East — incentivised by record-high freight rates. But more are unwilling to send their vessels into the Black Sea where margins are lower and trading is far more dangerous, shipping groups say."}],[{"start":114.84,"text":"In the murky dawn light of October 15, two drones hit the 37-year-old chemical tanker Wine Trader as it anchored off Romania’s Black Sea coast waiting to pick up a cargo in Moldova."}],[{"start":null,"text":""}],[{"start":125.56,"text":"The same night another chemical tanker called Yara J was also hit while anchored near the entrance to the Sulina Canal, about 15km from Wine Trader. This week Russia claimed another five cargo ships were hit off Ukraine’s coast. Romanian authorities reported that another tanker was hit off its coastline on Thursday, leaving three sailors missing and one dead."}],[{"start":147.72,"text":"“The situation is unbelievable,” said Salvatore Adorno, deputy person ashore at Sicilship, Wine Trader’s manager. “In my opinion each attack on a ship is an attack with the intention to cause death . . . If you hit the accommodation area in the same place twice the intention is to kill.”"}],[{"start":166.04,"text":"Romania’s President Nicușor Dan accused Russia of escalating the war on the edge of Nato territory on Friday."}],[{"start":173.44,"text":"Since the start of Moscow’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine, the Black Sea has been a high-risk region for ships to trade in. The water was mined early on and, despite a lull during a UN and Turkey-brokered grain export agreement that collapsed in 2023, Russia has continued bombarding Ukrainian ports. Interference in ships’ satellite navigation systems on both sides has been rife."}],[{"start":195.96,"text":"But since this summer, the tit-for-tat attacks on shipping and port infrastructure have reached their most intense level."}],[{"start":202.32,"text":"“This is a different ball game,” said Bridget Diakun, research director at Lloyd’s List Intelligence. “I’ve been tracking the war’s impact on seaborne trade for years and I’ve never seen anything like this.”"}],[{"start":214.24,"text":"About 387 ships were struck between July and September, more than five times as many as in the previous quarter, according to Ambrey."}],[{"start":null,"text":"

"}],[{"start":222.56,"text":"Part of the reason for the escalation was a Ukrainian drone campaign against Russian vessels that started in an effort to cut off diesel supplies from Crimea but quickly spread to shipping in the Kerch Strait, where the Sea of Azov meets the Black Sea."}],[{"start":235.88,"text":"In September, Robert Brovdi, USF commander, said Kyiv had hit more than 300 Russian vessels in 11 weeks. Targets included not just sanctioned tankers but bulk carriers transporting Russian grain."}],[{"start":248.44,"text":"The Kremlin’s reaction has been to intensify its attacks against ships visiting Ukraine’s ports in a relentless effort that Moscow has maintained even as Kyiv’s strikes have slowed. Russia accounted for around 90 per cent strikes on shipping the past 45 days, Ambrey said."}],[{"start":264.8,"text":"The effect is clear in Ukraine’s ports in Greater Odesa. The port handled fewer than 10 ships last month, compared to roughly 400 in July, according to Ukraine’s largest private port operator TIS."}],[{"start":null,"text":""}],[{"start":277.04,"text":"For crews, strikes from both sides have become deadlier, particularly as Ukraine has begun to adopt Russian tactics, security analysts say."}],[{"start":285.56,"text":"Previously, Ukraine ‘‘would target a loading manifold or would disable the engine room or rudder,” said Tomas Alexa, senior analyst at Ambrey. Now “similar to Russia they attack [ship’s] bridges and accommodation blocks”, which can increase casualties among the crew."}],[{"start":300.64,"text":"The geography of attacks has also become far less discriminating. “We truly have a boundless war between Russia and Ukraine which will affect all other Black Sea states,” said Andrii Klymenko, head of the Black Sea Institute of Strategic Studies, a monitoring group."}],[{"start":316.08,"text":"In mid-September, the Joint War Committee, which decides so-called “war risk” zones for insurance purposes, expanded the highest threat level from several high-risk areas to almost the entire Black Sea, excluding only the territorial waters of Romania, Bulgaria and Turkey."}],[{"start":null,"text":""}],[{"start":332.22,"text":"But now that ships in those areas have come under attack, even the most resilient shipping companies are reconsidering trade in the Sulina anchorage close to the Danube river basin and Bulgarian coast."}],[{"start":343.52,"text":"Underwriters told the FT that war insurance could reach 15 per cent of a ship’s hull value, almost double the rate for vessels in the Gulf. That has driven shipowners to use older vessels, which are generally cheaper to insure because their hulls are worth less."}],[{"start":358.48,"text":"Vessels can be up to 50 years old and have few other options for where to trade because of their dilapidated state, said Deha Aydin, a Turkish marine consultant at law firm Esenyel & Partners. They would face “a high risk of detention in European ports”."}],[{"start":null,"text":""}],[{"start":372.96,"text":"Many also operate outside standard union agreements, leaving seafarers at the mercy of unscrupulous shipowners."}],[{"start":379.12,"text":"Some crew who had asked to leave ships after reaching the Black Sea through the Bosphorus reported being told by shipowners that they must compensate the company if they quit contracts early, according to the International Transport Workers’ Federation."}],[{"start":393.76,"text":"Most crew in the region come from less traditional seafaring nations such as Syria, Egypt, Azerbaijan and Benin “because they’re more desperate to take pay”, ITF secretary-general Stephen Cotton said."}],[{"start":407.88,"text":"Contracts for Syrian seafarers in the Black Sea, seen by the FT, show that pay can be as little as $800 per month, although most of the contracts state that salary will be doubled on a pro-rata basis for every day spent in the war zone."}],[{"start":422.08,"text":"One says that if a sailor dies, their next of kin will receive between $25,000 and $50,000 depending on their rank."}],[{"start":430.04,"text":"Mahfuzul Islam Plabon, a Bangladeshi seafarer who was aboard a tanker hit by a Ukrainian sea drone while sailing to the Russian port of Novorossiysk a year ago, said he would never return to the Black Sea “no matter how much money they offer”."}],[{"start":445.56,"text":"Flames engulfed the vessel, destroying the life raft, leaving the crew to huddle in the bow until they were picked up three hours later by the Turkish coastguard, he said."}],[{"start":455.08,"text":"Plabon, one of the few seafarers willing to talk for fear of being blacklisted by owners, he said he was paid an extra $40 per day to go into the war zone."}],[{"start":465.16,"text":"Yet as crews become harder to find, experienced seafarers are increasingly essential to navigate the Black Sea’s mined waters, where satellite interference has forced captains to rely on paper charts, Ambrey’s Alexa said."}],[{"start":null,"text":""}],[{"start":478.32,"text":"Taras Vysotskyi, Ukraine’s agriculture minister, said crews are ‘‘really afraid’’ of working in such conditions."}],[{"start":485.32,"text":"Ukraine has diverted grain through smaller Danube ports. But Vysotskyi said it was impossible to utilise the capacity of these places because they kept being attacked."}],[{"start":493.84,"text":"Russia is also rerouting grain through much more expensive routes via the Baltic and from Vladivostok in the Far East. Loadings from Black Sea and nearby Azov ports were 201,000 tonnes in September, a sixth of the previous month’s level, according to satellite monitoring from shipping broker IFCHOR Galbraiths."}],[{"start":513.76,"text":"Moscow has also turned to draping its fleet of oil tankers in anti-drone nets and adopted more complex GPS-spoofing techniques to avoid being hit by Ukrainian drones."}],[{"start":null,"text":""}],[{"start":523.54,"text":"The consequences extend far beyond Ukraine and Russia. Kyiv’s exports of agricultural commodities by sea collapsed to 1.4mn tonnes in August — roughly 75 per cent below prewar levels, according to the Ukrainian agriculture ministry."}],[{"start":539.06,"text":"“The biggest risk will not be felt in short-term shipping delays today, but in the fields next spring,” Andrii Verevskyi, chair of major Ukrainian sunflower oil exporter Kernel, said this month. “Export revenue is what pays for fuel, seed and fertiliser. If port outlets are choked and freight costs wipe out operating margins, small and midsized Ukrainian farmers simply will not have the cash to plant.”"}],[{"start":null,"text":""}],[{"start":563.64,"text":"Markets as far-flung as west Africa and Indonesia would have to find other supplies. An executive from an international grain trader said Indonesia had booked a large share of its outstanding grain purchases from Russia over the next three to four months, and was already turning to Australian suppliers amid concerns that Russian shipments might not arrive."}],[{"start":582.28,"text":"Klymenko, the longtime Black Sea watcher, fears the situation will only deteriorate unless Nato’s forces intervene, which is highly unlikely — despite the European parliament calling for an EU naval operation in the Black Sea citing the “deadly attacks”."}],[{"start":595.8,"text":"“It’s naive right now to hope for any ceasefire in the Black Sea,” he said. “Unfortunately the war will not only continue, but will escalate and widen.”"}],[{"start":607,"text":"Now that both sides had realised the power of disrupting shipping routes, it would be hard to stop, he added. “It’s like putting toothpaste back in the tube. You cannot do it.”"}],[{"start":617.02,"text":"Additional reporting by Alec Russell"}],[{"start":622.88,"text":""}]],"url":"https://audio.ftcn.net.cn/album/a_1792924289_3556.mp3"}