During the last week of February, European media reported that the Danish freight forwarder and project logistics specialist Blue Water Shipping, has resumed its transit via Russia, despite sanctions. 

The company’s head of communications Jan Hjortlund Hansen was quoted as saying, “Shipping via Russia is not a solution that we usually offer, but we have found that some customers are specifically asking for this solution when it comes to their supply chains, especially due to the situation around the Red Sea, and we are here to help with transportation in compliance with applicable sanctions and restrictions.

In a subsequent response to Project Cargo Journal, Hjortlung Hansen said, “Unfortunately, the quote was wrong.”

Blue Water did respond to the media reports, adding that in a statement to the press on February 20, 2024, “it was incorrectly stated that Blue Water had resumed transit via Russia. That is not correct, as we still do not use transit via Russia.”

The company suspended all its activities in Russia and Belarus due to the ongoing war in Ukraine, in 2022. “We continuously follow the situation and assess how the sanctions against Russia impact our activities and ability to service our customers,’ the company said in a notice in March 2022.

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In its latest notice, Blue Water said that it did receive inquiries from customers about transiting via Russia, all due to the problems in the Read Sea. The ongoing issues in the region have posed extraordinary challenges to many companies’ supply chains.

“Therefore, we have recently investigated the possibility of temporarily offering this solution in compliance with current legislation and sanctions to service individual customers with important deliveries. But our conclusion remains that we will not use transit via Russia,” the company said in its statement responding to media reports.