KYIV. Jan 10 (Interfax) - Verkhovna Rada Commissioner on Human Rights Liudmyla Denisova is planning to visit Moscow next week to discuss with Russian counterpart Tatyana Moskalkova and FSB Director Alexander Bortnikov the future of Ukrainian sailors who were detained near the Kerch Strait in November 2018.
"Every day I talk to Mrs. Moskalkova but there are some things she cannot do within the scope of her mandate. She cannot issue a certificate or show me in the Lefortovo remand prison or in the Matrosskaya Tishina since she cannot make that kind of decision," Denisova said in a comment for Ukrainian television channels when speaking in Odesa on Thursday.
"I have repeatedly requested Bortnikov, who is the director of the Federal Security Service of the Russian Federation. My request for an opportunity to meet with Ukrainian prisoners of war in a detention facility is currently under consideration," she said.
"I will visit Moscow next week. I will talk to them about all these matters. We know that there will be proceedings in the Lefortovsky [District] Court to consider an extension of custody, regrettably, with regard to our sailors. We will work," Denisova added.
Denisova said in early December 2018 that she had requested Moskalkova and Bortnikov to organize her visit to the detained Ukrainian sailors in Moscow.
Russian border guards used weapons to stop three Ukrainian naval vessels, the Yany Kapu tug and the Berdyansk and the Nikopol armored gunboats, as they were traveling from Odesa to Mariupol near the Kerch Strait on November 25, 2018. The ships were convoyed to Kerch.
The Russian Federal Security Service (FSB) said the Ukrainian warships entered Russia's territorial waters on Kyiv's orders and described the incident as an act of provocation coordinated by two Ukrainian Security Service officers. Russia also said that Kyiv did not properly notify it that Ukrainian vessels were planning to pass through the strait.
Kyiv called the Russian border guard's actions unlawful and accused Moscow of violating the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea and a treaty between Ukraine and Russia on cooperation in using the Sea of Azov and the Kerch Strait.
The Ukrainians are charged with "conspiracy by a group of persons or an organized group to illegally cross the border using violence or the threat to use violence." If found guilty, the Ukrainians could face up to six years in jail.
Courts in Simferopol and Kerch remanded 22 sailors and two Ukrainian Security Service officials in custody for nearly two months.
All of the Ukrainians were transported from Crimea to Moscow. Twenty-one of them have been put in the Lefortovo detention facility and the other three, who were wounded, are now in the infirmary of the Matrosskaya Tishina facility.
Kyiv calls the detained sailors prisoners of war. The FSB says they cannot be regarded as POWs, as they are charged with a crime and Russia and Ukraine are not in a state of war or military conflict.