Russia to charge Ukrainian sailors as Kerch crisis deepens
RUSSIA Russia is preparing to bring charges against the Ukrainian sailors it captured last Sunday despite protests from Kiev that they should be treated as prisoners of war.
The decision to prosecute them for making an illegal border crossing is likely to deepen the latest crisis between the two countries, which has provoked international condemnation and talk of fresh western sanctions against Moscow. Russian border forces fired on and seized three Ukrainian ships at the weekend. At least three sailors were wounded. On Monday, the Ukrainian government declared martial law in some border regions and the country’s president, Petro Poroshenko, said there was an “extremely serious” threat of a Russian land invasion. Yesterday, the Kremlin said the sailors’ fate would be decided in court, indicating that Russia planned to press criminal charges. Russian and Ukrainian media reported that the sailors would be arraigned at a court in the city of Simferopol in Crimea, the peninsula annexed by Russia in 2014. Earlier, Russian state media reported that the sailors would be charged with illegally crossing Russia’s borders. Ukraine says the sailors were travelling in shared waters to the Sea of Azov, which they have a right to patrol under a bilateral treaty. They were intercepted in the Kerch strait, which separates Crimea from the Russian mainland.
Russia has been building up its naval presence and seeking to restrict Ukrainian access since completing a bridge across the strait in May. The Ukrainian government released video footage of one of its ships being rammed by a Russian vessel. Ukraine’s state security service said its intelligence officers were among the crew and that they were fulfilling counterintelligence operations for the Ukrainian navy, in response to “psychological and physical pressure” from Russian spy services. It did not elaborate, but demanded that Russia stop such activity. Russia’s FSB intelligence agency said on Monday that the presence of intelligence officers on board the Ukrainian ships, was a ‘provocation’ staged by Ukraine.
Russian state television broadcast interrogations with three of the sailors on Tuesday, eliciting confessions that appeared to be made under duress. “I recognise that the actions of the ships with military hardware of Ukraine’s navy had a provocative character,” one of the sailors, who identified himself as Vladimir Lisov, said. “I was carrying out an order.” (The Guardian)