The lawyers for the Ukrainian sailors arrested in Russia will meet with their clients before the end of the year, and there are no doubts that the sailors will insist on recognizing them as prisoners of war, Nikolai Polozov, who leads the defense team for the Ukrainian sailors, said on Monday.
“In line with the schedule of investigative procedures, all lawyers will see their clients before the New Year’s,” Polozov said at a news conference in Kyiv.
He said he was sure that, as well as the eight sailors who have already recognized themselves as prisoners of war, the rest will also insist on this status.
“The sailors have all chances only if they maintain a common position,” Polozov said. “The investigation will be trying to set them against each other… The defense team will try to keep the sailors from these actions,” he said.
“A total of 34 lawyers are immediately involved in this case. Some are Crimean lawyers and some are from Moscow. All of them are defending the Ukrainian sailors as prisoners of war as one team and following a common strategy,” he said.
This defense team has worked for a week, and lawyers have visited 11 captured sailors over this time, he said.
“Eight of them have declared officially that they consider themselves prisoners of war and are such. This reflects a common strategic position. They are considered prisoners of war in Ukraine and around the world, and the sailors themselves have also declared this, and only Russian authorities consider them criminals,” Polozov said.
“I have no doubts that, just as the eight sailors have declared officially that they are prisoners of war, the rest will make the same statements, because they are nothing but prisoners of war in Russia at the moment,” he said.
Lawyers have met and will continue to meet with the sailors at the Federal Security Service (FSB) investigative directorate, Polozov said.
Courts are very likely to extend the duration of the investigation and the sailors’ arrests in January 2019, Polozov said.
The Russian border guard used weapons to stop three Ukrainian naval vessels, the Yany Kapu tug and the Berdyansk and the Nikopol armored gunboats, on their way from Odesa to Mariupol near the Kerch Strait on November 25. The ships were convoyed to Kerch.
Courts in Simferopol and Kerch remanded the 24 Ukrainian on board the vessels in custody until January 25, 2019.
The Ukrainians are charged with “conspiracy by a group of persons or an organized group to illegally cross the border using violence or the threat to use violence” (Russian Criminal Code Article 322 Part 3). If found guilty, the Ukrainians might face up to six years in prison.
As of November 29, the arrested Ukrainians had been escorted to the Lefortovo detention facility in Moscow.
Kyiv sees the detained sailors as prisoners of war who cannot be tried.
Kyiv called the Russian border guard’s actions unlawful and accused Moscow of violating the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea and a treaty between Ukraine and Russia on cooperation in using the Sea of Azov and the Kerch Strait.
The incident in the Kerch Strait prompted Ukraine to declare martial law in a number of regions.
