OREANDA-NEWS. The Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Ukraine sent to Russia a note demanding a return of Ukrainian warships which were captured during the incident in the Kerch Strait in November 2018. It was announced by the head of the agency Vadim Prystaiko.

According to the politician, Kiev asked Moscow to report the exact coordinates and the time when it would be possible to take the ships. “I would like to see when we get these ships, whether the consequences of the shelling remained, or this delay is due to the fact that they are being gradually repaired. There is no delay on our part here. Our military men are ready to arrive at any point and take our ships,” Prystaiko stated.

At the end of November 2018, in the Kerch Strait connecting the Black and Azov seas Russian border guards detained three ships of the Ukrainian Navy (artillery boats Berdyansk and Nikopol, and tugboat Yany Kapu), as well as sailors who were on board. Moscow explained these actions by the fact that Ukrainian ships entered the territorial waters of Russia near the Crimean Peninsula and did not respond to warnings. The crews of warships were accused of illegal crossing the Russian border (Article 322 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation).

In May 2019, the International Tribunal of the Law of the Sea ordered Russia to return Ukrainian sailors and ships detained in the Kerch Strait. On September 7, 24 military men returned to Kiev in the course of a bilateral exchange of prisoners between Russia and Ukraine. In early October, Igor Voronchenko, the Commander of the Ukrainian Navy, said that Russia had given to the United Nations tribunal false information about the return of three Ukrainian ships.