According to Maersk’s Chief Executive, Soren Skou, vessels are still calling at Russian ports to deliver containers booked before the invasion of Ukraine began and to pick up roughly 50,000 containers stranded in Russia. As a result of what the Kremlin refers to as a “special military operation” in Ukraine, the shipping line has temporarily blocked new container bookings to and from Russia.
“Currently, we have around 50,000 of our containers in Russia. The majority of them are empties and belong to us “Skou remarked. “We require them, and we are hesitant to abandon them in Russia. As a result, we continue to make port calls in Russia “he stated. Maersk tried to move the containers out of Russia by rail as well. Maersk is unlikely to be able to deliver all the containers booked into Russia before the invasion of Ukraine started, due to bottlenecks at Russian ports.
Russia accounted for around 2.5 percent of the company’s total sales last year. It has flights to St. Petersburg and Kaliningrad in the Baltic Sea, Novorossiisk in the Black Sea, and Vladivostok and Vostochny on Russia’s east coast.
Maersk, which has operated in Russia since 1992, announced last week that it would sell all of its assets in the country, including a 30.75 percent stake in Russian port operator Global Ports Investments, which is owned by Russian state nuclear company Rosatom and Russian businessman Sergey Shiskarev.
