Russian Commodities Aren’t Safe in Red Sea as Houthis Attack

Yemen’s Houthi militants have attacked more merchant ships hauling Russian commodities than products from anywhere else in the world, highlighting the limits of safe-passage assurances that the rebels gave Moscow earlier this year.

Back in January and March, the Houthis said that they would spare Russian shipping along with that of China as they targeted maritime trade in a bid to pressure Israel over the war in Gaza.

But of 83 vessels listed by the UK Navy as suffering incidents in the Red Sea and Gulf of Aden since November, 19% had Russia as their most recent port call. All were oil or commodity carriers. The next closest is Singapore, a routine stopover for many freighters sailing between Asia and Europe, which accounted for 11%.

To be clear, Russian-owned ships — and those sailing under the Russian flag — haven’t come under attack. But that will be little consolation to the merchant sailors on the international vessels moving the nation’s cargoes who must navigate the southern Red Sea under a barrage of drone and missile strikes.

The large numbers are partly a function of the huge flow of Russian oil and commodities still sailing through the area en route to Asia.

With swaths of global shipping avoiding the waterway, vessels carrying Russian oil and bulk commodities have largely continued to run the gauntlet, meaning there are more at risk of attack. Moscow needs to get its commodities to buyers as quickly and cheaply as possible to help finance its war in Ukraine.

Russian and Chinese merchant ships were told in January that they needn’t fear attack in the southern Red Sea, Mohammad al-Bukhaiti, spokesman for Yemen’s Houthi militants, said in an interview with Russian newspaper Izvestia. Two months later, the assurances were repeated after China and Russia reached an understanding following talks between their diplomats in Oman and Mohammed Abdel Salam, one of the Houthis’ top political figures.

Rising Costs

The Houthis’ pledges coincided with reduced insurance costs for Chinese ships in particular. The industry norm is holding steady at 0.5% of the value of a ship or higher, according to people involved in the market. Chinese vessels are paying about half that, they said.

For Russian vessels, often covered outside of conventional western insurance markets, the picture on insurance is less clear. But with an uptick in recent incidents involving the nation’s cargoes, the risks are evident.

Four of the last six vessels targeted had a port in Russia as their most recent call, according to vessel tracking by Bloomberg of all those ships that the UK Navy says have been attacked.

A carrier that ultimately sank in June — the second casualty of the Houthi attacks — was carrying coal having departed from the Russian port of Ust-Luga.

That hasn’t stopped a handful of ships from using their satellite signals to try and demonstrate Russian affiliations in a bid to avoid attack. Some were continuing to signal “Russia crew” and “Russian on board,” according to ship tracking data compiled by Bloomberg.