Icebreakers "Captain Moshkin" and "Captain Krutov" (owner "Rosmorport") continue to escort a convoy of 15 cargo ships from the ports of the Gulf of Taganrog to the Kerch Strait. The vessels have covered some 5 nautical miles, as of 8:00 am (Moscow Time), the Azov Ice Ops Headquarter said.
The icebreakers are ramming a path through very thick, ridged ice for the convoy consisting of cargo ships the Adriatic Mariner, the Baltic Mariner, the Amur-2525, the A. Shotman, the Sormovsy-3050, the Amur-2512, the Dorothy, the Kazan, the Mechanic Erokhin, the Mechanic Kharitonov, the Mechanic Sazonov, the Siberian-2131 , the Azov Mariner , the Ukrainian and the Vostochny.
The icebreakers Kapitan Demidov and the Kapitan Chudinov have approached the ice-trapped Kizhi and started to tow the vessel to open water.
Overall, there are reportedly 56 ships in the Azov Sea-based Russian ports, 11 of them have ice-class hulls. In the Sea of Azov there are 17 outward bound vessels (16 en route, one to be escorted) and 14 incoming (2 stricken ships and 2 - awaiting assistance). At least 93 vessels are in the Black Sea to be escorting through the Kerch Strait, 40 of them - ice-classed ships. Since yesterday, 13 vessels have passed the Strait to / from the Sea of Azov. Some ships are escorted by ice-class tugs to / from the port of Kavkaz.
The Rosmorport owned icebreakers were deployed and operate in the area in accordance with the instructions of the Ice Operations Headquarters (IOHQ) led by Harbour Master of the Port of Taganrog. Currently, the IOHQ is busy freeing ice-trapped vessels and escort them to open water.
FSUE Rosmorport has now a fleet of four diesel-electric icebreakers in the area operated by its regional Azov and Black Sea branches. In addition, the Port of Taganrog has the icebreaking tug Kama, the same class vessel Kapitan Kharchikov operates at the port of Azov, Port of Rostov-on-Don has the icebreaking tug Phanagoria.