Turkey hands Moscow and Kyiv draft memorandum on halting attacks on civilian ships in the Black Sea

Turkey has handed Russia and Ukraine a draft memorandum aimed at fully stopping attacks on civilian vessels in the Black Sea. This was reported to the AFP agency by a source among Turkish diplomats, as cited by RBC-Ukraine via Al Arabiya. "We shared the text of the memorandum, a draft text, with Russia and Ukraine in order to find a solution to the problem of these attacks in the Black Sea," the diplomat stated. Ankara's initiative is a reaction to the sharp escalation of incidents in the region and, in essence, represents an attempt at a diplomatic "stitching together" of a situation that over the past months has entered a chronic phase.

A vulnerable stretch of 4–5 miles: where the risk is highest

According to the Turkish diplomat, the main goal of the proposed memorandum is to protect civilian ships on the most vulnerable stretch of the route. In the Black Sea there is a zone roughly 4–5 nautical miles long where vessels, leaving Ukraine's national territorial waters, pass into international waters. It is precisely at this transition, in Ankara's assessment, that the risk of attacks rises: the ship is no longer under the full jurisdiction of the coastal state, but has not yet entered the zone where a full international shipping regime applies. The memorandum, as it follows from the description, is to establish the rules of conduct for the parties in this "grey" corridor and to guarantee safety for commercial and civilian shipping.

The "grain corridor" as an architectural template

The foundation of Ankara's new proposal is the mechanism of the "grain corridor," which operated in 2022 under the mediation of the UN and Turkey. The original grain agreement was signed in July 2022 to ensure the safe export of Ukrainian agricultural products through the Black Sea. The mechanism provided for the inspection of vessels, coordinated routes, and monitoring by a coordinating center in Istanbul. After Russia withdrew from the agreement in 2023, Ukraine independently organized an alternative humanitarian route running through the territorial waters of Romania and Bulgaria. Now Ankara proposes to adapt the control and mediation infrastructure proven in 2022 to a new reality in which the threat comes not from logistical constraints but from direct armed attacks on civilian ships.

25 attacks in two months: the statistics that pushed Ankara

Turkey's intensification of diplomatic efforts came against the backdrop of a sharp rise in incidents in the Black Sea. Starting from the end of June 2026, at least 25 civilian vessels belonging to Turkey were attacked in the area. Such a concentration of attacks over a short period, according to observers, created a direct threat not only to commercial shipping but also to the very safety of Turkish ports and coastal territories. It was this statistic, it seems, that became the trigger for Ankara's shift from monitoring to an active diplomatic initiative with a specific textual proposal.

The attack on the Tanzanian vessel on September 17

The immediate precursor to the handover of the memorandum was the incident of September 17, 2026, when a Russian drone attacked a civilian ship flying the flag of Tanzania that was heading to one of Ukraine's ports. As a result of the strike, one person was killed and several others were injured. This episode was, in effect, the last straw: it demonstrated that the attacks affect not only vessels linked to the warring parties but also neutral states whose flags have no connection to the conflict. For Turkey, as the guarantor of the Bosphorus strait and a key mediator, such an incident makes diplomatic intervention not merely desirable but practically obligatory.

Shipping restrictions and the Bloomberg context

Earlier, Bloomberg sources reported that Turkey had already restricted the movement of some commercial vessels in the Black Sea. The reason for this step was precisely the rise in the number of attacks. Thus, before handing over the memorandum, Ankara was acting on two levels: on the one hand, an administrative narrowing of the corridor to reduce risks; on the other, the preparation of a diplomatic tool that could legitimately and sustainably restore the safety of shipping. The handover of the draft memorandum to Russia and Ukraine fits logically into this sequence: first restriction, then proposal.

Contradictory data

The provided sources contain a discrepancy in the wording regarding the ownership of the attacked vessels. In the RBC-Ukraine text (citing AFP and a Turkish diplomat), it is stated that over the period from the end of June "at least 25 civilian vessels belonging to Turkey" were attacked. At the same time, in the context of September 17, a vessel flying the flag of Tanzania is mentioned. This may mean that the "25 vessels" statistic includes both Turkish and foreign vessels that entered Turkish ports or are linked to Turkish shipping, or that the diplomat's wording was simplified when passed to the media. The exact list and national affiliation of all 25 vessels have not been disclosed in open sources, and as of the publication date of September 18, 2026, neither Moscow nor Kyiv had publicly confirmed or denied the fact of receiving the draft memorandum.