Ukrainian port eyed as analysts seek Syria’s arms source

[Sand Wind]

The ship’s apparent vanishing act repeated a pattern seen by other freighters embarking from the same Black Sea port — a known point of origin for weapons shipments — over the past year. Recently, such behavior has begun drawing the attention of investigators tracking the flow of arms and supplies to the combatants in Syria’s 21 / 2-year-old uprising.

Western governments have long known that Russia is providing crucial backing for the government of President Bashar al-Assad, including many of the heavy weapons used to battle opposition forces. But Western intelligence officials and independent experts say a substantial portion of the aid appears to be arriving in commercial ships, prompting analysts to look closely at this Cold War-era military port and its long history of arming Russian allies and some of the world’s most repressive regimes.

A new study by independent conflict researchers describes a heavy volume of traffic in the past two years from Ukraine’s Oktyabrsk port, just up the Black Sea coast from Odessa, to Syria’s main ports on the Mediterranean. The dozens of ships making the journey ranged from smaller Syrian- and Lebanese-flagged vessels to tanker-size behemoths with a long history of hauling weapons cargos.

The report by C4ADS, a Washington-based nonprofit group, linked some of the larger vessels to a network of businessmen and companies with ties to senior government officials in Russia and Ukraine. The gaps in transponder data, the authors say, are a relatively recent phenomenon that coincides with international criticism of Russia for aiding its longtime Syrian ally despite the government’s brutal repression of the civilian population.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/ukrainian-port-eyed-as-analysts-seek-syrias-arms-source/2013/09/07/f61b0082-1710-11e3-a2ec-b47e45e6f8ef_story.html

[HooptieWagon]

1. It can't be difficult monitoring ships...

...sailing through the Bosphorus Straight, which is necessary to go from Odessa to the Med. Even an observer with binoculars can do it.

[David__77]

2. Normal, legal trade.

They act like it's some oddity. It's been going on for decades. US ships weapons to Egypt, etc.