Shipowner Confirms Nord Captain Returned To Russia After Detention In Ukraine

Faizan Hashmi Published February 11, 2019 | 03:55 PM

The captain of the Russian fishing vessel Nord, Vladimir Gorbenko, who had been in Ukrainian custody since last March, is now in Russia, Anna Sheveleva, the spokeswoman for Kerch Rybkolkhoz, which owns the ship, said on Monday

SIMFEROPOL (UrduPoint News / Sputnik - 11th February, 2019) The captain of the Russian fishing vessel Nord, Vladimir Gorbenko, who had been in Ukrainian custody since last March, is now in Russia, Anna Sheveleva, the spokeswoman for Kerch Rybkolkhoz, which owns the ship, said on Monday.

Earlier in the day, the sailor's mother, Evgenia Gorbenko, told Sputnik that her son returned to Crimea on Saturday.

"Yes, the captain is in Russia. His return is his personal successful project," Sheveleva told reporters.

Gorbenko, on his part, told the Komsomolskaya Pravda newspaper, which covers news on Crimea, that he had returned to Russia using a Russian passport. He also mentioned that the Ukrainian authorities had offered him to confess his guilt, without taking legal action, receive a Ukrainian passport and use it to return home.

According to the captain, his boat was still in Ukraine, and there was little hope of getting it back.

Gorbenko added that neither he nor his crew resisted the Ukrainian border guards who seized the vessel because they were certain they had not broken any laws.

On March 25, 2018, the Ukrainian Border Guard Service detained Russia-flagged Nord and its 10-person crew in the Sea of Azov. In early April, Gorbenko was arrested for violating entry and exit procedures but promptly released on bail, only to be put into custody again shortly afterward over poaching charges. The nine other crew members were able to return to Crimea.

Gorbenko was reported missing by the Ukrainian police on February 4. According to the Ukrainian Interior Ministry, he disappeared on January 26 in Ukraine's southern Zaporizhia region. Gorbenko's lawyers never ruled the possibility that the Ukrainian security services were involved in the captain's disappearance.