MOSCOW, December 6. /TASS/. Ukrainian Navy Commander Igor Voronchenko should step down in the aftermath of the Kerch Strait standoff instead of feigning surrender during peacetime, Russian Foreign Ministry Spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said on Thursday, commenting on the admiral offering himself up in the place of the 24 Ukrainian sailors, who were detained for breaching Russia’s state border.
"First, he sent his subordinates to fulfill the premeditated order breaking the law and then he thought he was worth all of them. Resigning would be sufficient, I think, unless this is a new form of the Kiev regime’s twisted tactics, which is, surrendering in peacetime," the diplomat wrote on her Facebook page.
On November 25, three Ukrainian naval ships violated the rules of passage from the Black Sea to the Sea of Azov. The intruding Ukrainian vessels illegally crossed the Russian state border, trespassed into Russian territorial waters and conducted dangerous maneuvers. In defiance of repeated warnings and demands to halt, the Ukrainian ships carried on violating the law, which drove the Russian forces to use gunfire in order to compel them to stop. As a result, all three ships were detained. In addition, three Ukrainian sailors were injured in the incident, who were later given medical assistance. A criminal case was opened over the violation of the Russian state border.