SIMFEROPOL, November 25. /TASS/. The decision of an international tribunal that social activists are calling to convene to investigate the Kerch Strait provocation undertaken by Ukraine will not have any legal power but will contribute to shaping public opinion on this issue, member of the Russian State Duma (parliament’s lower chamber) Natalia Poklonskaya believes.
"The public opinion that would be registered by a certain organization, a movement. The position of the people that will make up this institution will be expressed," Poklonskaya told TASS on Monday.
According to the politician, it is possibly wrong to call this campaign a "tribunal" since the process won’t have any official status.
"Tribunal is a very emphatic title. This is not a tribunal," she underlined. "It is neither a state nor an international organization that fulfils functions of a tribunal which is set out by international law. <…> I cannot say whether it is good or bad — there is an initiative like that and it can be out there," she said.
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Human rights activist Alexander Molokhov, a member of the Tavrida international association, announced earlier on Monday that the organization is preparing to convene a public tribunal on the Kerch Strait incident. Independent experts from across the world are planned to be invited, while an investigative reenactment will be held — the route of the Ukrainian ships would be repeated.
The tribunal is to be carried out in a few sessions in different countries, the first one is planned for spring 2020.
Kerch Strait provocation
On November 25, 2018, 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. A criminal case was opened over the violation of the Russian state border.
On September 7, Russia and Ukraine exchanged groups of arrestees and convicts, including the 24 Ukrainian sailors. Moreover, the return of the three Ukrainian ships — the tugboat Jana Kapu and two small armored artillery boats Nikopol and Berdyansk — took place in the Black Sea on November 18.