Russia presses final charges against Ukrainian sailors
Russia has announced the final version of its charges against the 13 Ukrainian sailors who are being held as prisoners of war, attorney Nikolai Polozov reported.
“Today there were investigative proceedings concerning another four prisoner-of-war Ukrainian sailors: Vladislav Kostyshin, Oleh Melnychuk, Serhiy Chuliba and Vasyl Soroka. The prisoner-of-war sailors and their attorneys were briefed on the conclusion of the commission’s situational forensic inquiry and charges were filed in their final version. Overall today, charges in their final version have been filed against the 13 prisoner-of-war sailors. Tomorrow the investigative proceedings will be continued against the rest of the prisoner-of-war Ukrainian sailors,” Polozov wrote on Facebook.
Crimean attorney Edem Semedlyaev published a letter from Oleh Melnychuk, commander of the tugboat “Yany-Kapu”, who thanked “everyone who is not indifferent, everyone who is helping and supporting” the Ukrainian sailors.
The investigation by Russia’s FSB in Moscow has begun to charge the Ukrainian sailors with illegally crossing the Russian state border (§3 Art. 322 of the Russian Criminal Code). It will take until 9 July to complete this process, after which the sailors and their legal defense teams will familiarize themselves with the case materials.
At the same time, the Ukrainian military boats Nikopol (P176), Berdyansk (U175) and the tugboat Yany Kapu (A947) that were captured by Russia’s FSB off the coast of Crimea in November 2018 have disappeared from the Genmol berths in Kerch, where they had been kept for the past few months. The Ukrainian ships have evidently been moved to an unknown location.
Russia’s FSB has made no official announcement about the relocation of the captured Ukrainian vessels or the final charges against the sailors.