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No concerns about condition of Nord fishing vessel’s captain, says ship owner

He is in Kerch, eager to take to the sea againб , the ship owner company’s chairman Sergei Leskov said

SIMFEROPOL, February 12. /TASS/. There are no concerns about the condition of Vladimir Gorbenko, the captain of Russia’s Nord fishing vessel, the ship owner company’s chairman Sergei Leskov told TASS on Tuesday.

According to earlier reports, the ship’s captain, who was under investigation in Ukraine, returned to Crimea.

"The captain contacted me today. He is alive and well, everything is fine," Leskov said. "He is in Kerch, eager to take to the sea again. We now have the entire crew back but we don’t know what to do next for we don’t have a ship and this is the problem," he added.

Nord vessel issue

In March 2018, Ukraine’s State Border Service detained a fishing vessel flying the Russian flag in the Sea of Azov, whose crew includes ten Russian nationals. The vessel’s captain was charged under the Ukrainian Criminal Code’s article on "violating the entry and exit rules to Ukraine’s occupied territory" and illegal fishing. On April 10, the Kherson City Court released Gorbenko on bail, while other Russian sailors were fined.

Two of the crew members managed to leave Ukraine but the other seven were prevented from leaving the country with Russian passports as Kiev considers Crimean residents to be Ukrainian citizens. However, on October 30, Kiev handed the sailors over to Russia in exchange for seven Ukrainian crew members from the YaMK-0041 and YaOD-2105 ships, detained for illegal fishing off Crimea’s coast.