The Ukrainian Foreign Ministry has sent a note to the Russian Foreign Ministry asking for the time and place of the return of the Ukrainian sailors detained in the Kerch Strait in November 2018.
“We have already drafted at diplomatic note to the Russian Federation. Today it will be sent to the Russian Foreign Ministry. In this note, we ask how we can collect our ships, when and where, how our consuls can collect our guys from the Lefortovo [prison],” Ukrainian Deputy Foreign Minister Olena Zerkal said on Monday.
“Tomorrow we will appeal to all foreign ministers, we’re drafting letters, so that they all approach Russia to point out that it is required to enforce the Tribunal’s decision and release the sailors and vessels,” she said.
According to Zerkal, Ukraine will appeal to the foreign ministers of the world, not only Europe.
On May 25, the International Tribunal for the Law of the Sea ruled that Russia immediately release detained Ukrainian sailors and return three naval vessels that were detained in the Kerch Strait in November 2018 to Ukraine.
“The Russian Federation shall immediately release the Ukrainian naval vessels Berdyansk, Nikopol and Yany Kapu, and return them to the custody of Ukraine. The Russian Federation shall immediately release the 24 detained Ukrainian servicemen and allow them to return to Ukraine,” the ITLOS decision said.
“Ukraine and the Russian Federation shall refrain from taking any action which might aggravate or extend the dispute submitted to the Annex VII arbitral tribunal,” it said.
However, the ITLOS “does not consider it necessary to require the Russian Federation to suspend criminal proceedings against the 24 detained Ukrainian servicemen and refrain from initiating new proceedings,” the court said. According to the tribunal, these are provisional measures.
The court also decided that Russia and Ukraine “submit to the tribunal the initial report referred to in Paragraph 121 not later than June 25, 2019.” Article 121 of the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea deals with the regime of islands.
On November 25, 2018, Russian border guards used weapons to stop three Ukrainian naval vessels, the Yany Kapu tug and the Berdyansk and the Nikopol armored gunboats, which were traveling from Odesa to Mariupol in the Kerch Strait.
Kyiv called the border guards’ 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.
Courts in Simferopol and Kerch remanded the 24 sailors in custody. In late November they were transferred to Moscow. 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.” If found guilty, they could face up to six years in prison.
Moscow’s Lefortovsky District Court ruled on April 17 to extend the arrest of all the 24 Ukrainians until the end of July.
Kyiv calls the detained sailors prisoners of war.
