The Ukrainian Sea Ports Authority (USPA) is the state-owned company that administers all ports in the Ukraine. We received a letter from USPA acting CEO Oleksandr Golodnytskyy in which he describes the horrific consequences of the war for Ukrainian people, calling upon us to inform all IAPH members about the scale of the human tragedy. He also asks us to support closure of ports to vessels flying the flag of the Russian Federation and/or owned by companies affiliated with the legal entities of the Russian Federation. You can read the letter at the end of the statement that we issued following the outbreak of the war. In that statement, we called upon governments and international institutions to ensure that measures to prevent Russian ships and/or cargoes from entering ports are aligned as far as practicable, both in the interest of their effectiveness and the equitable operational conditions for ports in the current difficult environment. Following bans introduced by the United Kingdom and Canada, Denmark and the Baltic countries have now proposed to ban Russian ships from entering the ports of the European Union, ahead of the meeting of the EU Defence and Foreign Affairs Council that is being held this Thursday and Friday in Brussels. We continue to exchange information daily with industry partners through the Ukraine Task Force set up by the International Chamber of Shipping (ICS). Members of the IAPH Risk and Resilience Committee will be kept updated as new developments arise.
