You're reading: Survival of Azov Sea incident claims Russian border guards rammed their vessel

The only fisherman who survived the incident in the Azov Sea, Oleksandr Fedorovych, has said that the Russian border guards deliberately rammed their fishing launch, which led to the death of four citizens of Ukraine. 

“They cut us off twice. It felt like they wanted just to run us down,” he said in an interview with the 1+1 Channel’s news service.

According to Fedorovych their boat twice escaped from a motorboat of the Coast Guard of the Russian Border Service, but it failed to do this for the third time. “The third time, they (the Russian border guards) went around us, turned around and went headlong for a ram. This was ram indeed,” he said.

At the same time, Russian law enforcers continue to insist that the Ukrainian fishermen were killed as a result of their own dangerous maneuver, which was done in violation of the International Regulations for Preventing Collisions at Sea, as a result of which the fishing boat capsized.

As reported, a motorboat of the Coast Guard of the Russian Border Service collided with a Ukrainian fishing launch, which it was allegedly chasing for poaching in Russia’s territorial waters in the Azov Sea near the village of Vorontsovka on July 17. The fishing boat capsized, killing four Ukrainian citizens. One fisherman was rescued.

The Ukrainian citizen rescued after the incident had a surgery. He is currently staying at a hospital in Yeisk, Krasnodar territory, Russia.

A prosecutor’s office of Mariupol, Donetsk region, opened a criminal case regarding the collision, in which four Ukrainian citizens were killed.