You're reading: Two Ukrainian crewmembers remain unaccounted for after collision in Sea of Azov

Kyiv, July 19 - Search is continuing in the Sea of Azov for two Ukrainian citizens missing since their ship collided with a Russian patrol boat on July 17, the Ukrainian Foreign Ministry reported.

“Russian and Ukrainian rescue crews are involved in the search operation,” Ukrainian Foreign Ministry spokesman Yevhen Perebyinis told Interfax-Ukraine on Friday.

The Ukrainian citizen, recued after the incident, is in serious but stable condition after he was operated on at a hospital in Yeisk on Thursday, he said.

“Our consul visited him yesterday and we are waiting for doctors’ instructions about when we could move him back to Ukraine,” he said, adding that the Foreign Ministry remains in touch with his relatives.

Ukraine’s Consulate General in Rostov-on-Don is being kept updated by Russian officials about the search operation and the hospitalized Ukrainian’s condition. The bodies and survivors have yet to be identified, and then talks will begin on the bodies’ repatriation, he said.

Reports said earlier that a Ukrainian fishing vessel and a Russian patrol boat collided in the Sea of Azov off coast of the town of Vorontsovka at about 1800 on July 7. The fishing vessel capsized. Two crewmembers were killed, two others remain unaccounted for, and one was rescued.