Investigators probing the case against 24 Ukrainian sailors, arrested after an incident in Kerch Strait last fall, request that their custody periods should be extended, Moscow’s Lefortovo district court spokesperson Ksenia Pervovlasenko told Interfax on July 15.
“The court received investigators’ requests for three-month extensions of the custody periods for the 24 accused, until October 24 and 26, 2019,” Pervovlasenko said.
The hearings are due on July 17, she said.
On November 25, 2018, Russian border guards used weapons to stop in the Kerch Strait three Ukrainian naval vessels, the Yany Kapu tug and the Berdyansk and the Nikopol armored gunboats, on their way from Odesa to Mariupol. Twenty-four Ukrainians who were aboard the vessels were charged with illegally crossing the border by a group of people by previous consent or by an organized group with the use of violence or a threat of using violence.
Russia also said that Kyiv had not duly notified it that naval vessels were planning to pass through the Kerch Strait.
Kyiv said it considers the arrested sailors as prisoners of war.
