MOSCOW. July 25 (Interfax) - Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky should clarify his attitude toward the detention of a Russian tanker at a Ukrainian port, Russian Federation Council Foreign Affairs Committee head Konstantin Kosachyov said.
"The circumstances have to be verified. Zelensky's position has to be clarified. Which Ukraine is the real one now? The one continuing to rattle sabers or the one seeking peace?" Kosachyov wrote on Facebook.
He commented thus on reports that the Ukrainian Security Service officials and military prosecutors detained the Russian tanker NEYMA, which, according to Ukraine, blocked the Nikopol and Berdyansk gunboats and the Yany Kapu tugboat belonging to the Ukrainian Navy during the incident in the Kerch Strait in November 2018.
If the Ukrainian Security Service is acting with the president's approval, "then Volodymyr Zelensky is in fact continuing the provocation committed by his predecessor [Petro] Poroshenko in the interests of his own election campaign."
"And that's very bad. It's bad for Ukraine, for relations with Russia, and for all those people who so much expected a new policy from Zelensky," he said.
If the Ukrainian Security Service is acting on its own behind the president's back and is "trying to drag him into this clumsy provocation," this is "just as bad, because it means that Zelensky is just a tool in the hands of the previous batch of Ukrainian security forces," he said.
"Which, again, is sad for Ukraine, for relations with Russia, and for all those people who vainly expected independence and responsibility from Zelensky," Kosachyov said.