TBILISI, DFWatch – Georgian border police Monday detained a Russian cargo ship carrying coal across the Black Sea from Ukraine to Turkey.

The Pur-Navolok is now in arrest in the Georgian port Batumi with its Russian crew of ten.

Preliminary information indicates that the ship was taken in for violation of navigation rules.

An investigation has been launched against the ship’s captain Yuri Danilov, Russian Foreign Ministry spokesman Lukashevich said Tuesday.

The Russian consul in Tbilisi, whose office technically is within Swiss jurisdiction because Russia lacks formal diplomatic relations to Georgia, is taking measures to ascertain the circumstances of detention and to provide consular assistance to the cargo ship crew, Lukashevich said.

He also says that according to the White Sea Freight Company which owns Pur-Navolok, the ship is registered in Arkhangelsk, and was carrying coal from Kerch in Ukraine to Hopa in Turkey, flying a Russian flag.