The Chinese container ship “Hen Yang 9,” owned by Guangxi Changhai Shipping Company, entered the port of Sevastopol in annexed Crimea. This was an unprecedented event, as Chinese vessels had previously avoided docking at Russian ports in occupied territories.
“Hen Yang 9” is registered under the Panamanian flag. The office of Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky claims the vessel had already stopped in Sevastopol twice—between June 19 and 22 and again on August 15. It later sailed to Turkey and then to Egypt.
According to data based on satellite imagery and transponder signals, the container ship reappeared in the Crimean port in September 2025. The vessel left Istanbul on September 2 and by September 6 was near Novorossiysk. A few days later, its transponder recorded an entry into the port of Kavkaz in Russia’s Krasnodar region. Yet a European Space Agency image taken just ten minutes later showed that the ship was not there.
The vessel photographed in Sevastopol harbor on September 14.
Similar discrepancies were observed on September 11 and 15: “Hen Yang 9” transmitted its location, but satellite data did not confirm it. On September 14, however, the container ship was recorded in Sevastopol. During its two-week voyage in the Black Sea that month, the vessel appears to have deliberately falsified its route, using its transponder to broadcast false coordinates and mask its movements.
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The visits of the Chinese container ship coincided with Russia’s launch in April of a rail link to Crimea through other occupied Ukrainian territories. Kyiv believes Moscow is using this route to transport goods from the Donetsk and Kherson regions to Black Sea ports, from where they are exported abroad.
Ukraine’s embassy in China lodged a protest with Beijing back in June over the “Hen Yang 9” entering Sevastopol. According to Vladyslav Vlasiuk, the president’s envoy for sanctions policy, China’s Foreign Ministry replied that its citizens and companies are advised to avoid contact with Ukraine’s occupied regions, but that each case would be considered individually.