Crimean Lawmakers Draft Memorandum On Kerch Strait Incident - Working Group

Fahad Shabbir (@FahadShabbir) Published January 26, 2019 | 03:35 PM

Crimean lawyers have prepared a legal memorandum on the recent incident in the Kerch Strait, when Ukrainian vessels illegally crossed the Russian maritime border, the head of a working group on international legal issues in the permanent mission of Crimea under the president of Russia, Alexander Molokhov, told Sputnik

SIMFEROPOL (UrduPoint News / Sputnik - 26th January, 2019) Crimean lawyers have prepared a legal memorandum on the recent incident in the Kerch Strait, when Ukrainian vessels illegally crossed the Russian maritime border, the head of a working group on international legal issues in the permanent mission of Crimea under the president of Russia, Alexander Molokhov, told Sputnik.

"We have prepared a draft legal memorandum with regard to the Kerch Strait incident. This is a lawyers' view of the events. In legal terms, this [incident] can be clearly defined as a provocation on the part of Ukraine. And we are ready to substantively prove it using legal instruments," Molokhov said.

According to Molokhov, the memorandum will be presented in the near future.

On November 25, Ukraine's Berdyansk and Nikopol gunboats, and the Yany Kapu tugboat illegally crossed the Russian maritime border as they sailed toward the Kerch Strait, the entrance to the Sea of Azov.

Russia seized the Ukrainian vessels and detained 24 people on board after they failed to respond to a demand to stop. After the incident, a criminal case on illegal border crossing was opened in Russia.

Moscow has repeatedly slammed Kiev's attempts to portray the detained sailors as prisoners of war, stressing that they faced criminal charges. Russian President Vladimir Putin said that the incident was a provocation prepared in advance as a pretext to declare martial law, which was announced after the incident and lasted for a month. Putin said the provocation could be linked to Ukrainian leader Petro Poroshenko's low approval ratings ahead of the presidential election, set to be held in March.