KIEV, July 24. /TASS/. Lyudmila Denisova, a human rights ombudswoman of Ukraine’s Verkhovna Rada (parliament), said on Wednesday that an agreement has been reached to hand over Ukrainian sailors convicted in Russia back to Ukraine.
"Agreements have been reached to release the sailors. There is a ruling of the International Tribunal of the Law of the Sea. The remaining documents are being finalized. I think we will soon welcome the sailors at home," she said in an interview with Public Television.
However, the sailors’ lawyer, Nikolai Polozov, told Public Television he knew nothing about such an agreement.
"All I can say is that talks are underway but I don’t know at which stage they currently are and when they are going to be implemented as I am not involved in them. We will be notified when any procedural actions are taken because the sailors will sign no documents without their lawyers. So far, nothing has been said about that. We have been studying materials of the criminal case since yesterday," he noted.
Russia’s human rights ombudswoman Tatiana Moskalkova, on her part, refuted her Ukrainian counterpart Lyudmila Denisova’s words about an agreement on the release of Ukrainian sailors arrested in Russia after the Kerch Strait incident.
"Lyudmila Denisova referred her request via the Foreign Ministry to the Federal Security Service asking to bail them out against her guarantees. I know nothing about any decisions on that matter," Moskalkova told journalists.
On November 25, 2018, three Ukrainian warships violated the procedure of passing through Russia’s territorial waters from the Black Sea into the Sea of Azov. Russian border guards had to use weapons to stop the ships. The ships with 24 crew aboard were detained. The sailors are charged with violating Russia’s state border. A criminal case was opened. On July 17, Moscow’s Lefortovo District Court extended the arrest term for all the 24 sailors till October 24.