Goods on US-sanctioned Russian ship may come to BD by road from India

Staff Reporter :
Goods for the Rooppur Nuclear Power Plant that had to be returned from Bangladesh shores since carried by a United States sanctioned Russian ship may come to their destination by road.
Sources said that the Russian ship, instead of going all the way back with the vital equipment it was carrying, has adrift in the Bay of Bengal since the incident in late December.
The ship may be looking to unload its consignment at India’s Haldia port, finally.
India has been defying US sanctions over allowing Russian ships in their ports since the start of the war in Ukraine. All Indian ports are thus open to Russia-flagged ships, even those with sanctions on them.
The Russian-flagged ship arrived at the Mongla port channel at
the end of December with goods carried for the Rooppur plant, Mongla Port Authority Secretary Kalachand Singh said.
“We have learned that the cargo from the vessel can be unloaded at the Haldia port in India. From there, another vessel could carry the consignment for the Rooppur power plant and deliver it to a port of Bangladesh,” he said.
Sadhan Kumar, Operations Officer of Khulna Conveyor Shipping Lines, said, “Earlier shipments for Rooppur NPP were delivered by Russian and neutral, foreign-flagged vessels at the Mongla port. After the unloading of the cargoes at the port, they would be taken to Rooppur.”
The Russian ship Sparta III was scheduled to dock at the port in the southwestern part of the country and unload cargo destined for the Rooppur NPP in Pabna.
But the authorities denied the ship permission to dock at the port after officials got a letter from the US Embassy in Dhaka saying that the ship was on a list of Russian ships sanctioned by the US, sources said.