Passage through the Kerch Strait,connecting the Black Sea and the Sea of Azov, which was closed over security reasons on Sunday, was resumed on Monday, Alexei Volkov, the director general of the Crimean Sea Ports company, told Sputnik.
SIMFEROPOL (Pakistan Point News / Sputnik - 26th November, 2018) Passage through the Kerch Strait,connecting the Black Sea and the Sea of Azov, which was closed over security reasons on Sunday, was resumed on Monday, Alexei Volkov, the director general of the Crimean Sea Ports company, told Sputnik.
"Passage through the Kerch Strait is open," Volkov said.
On Sunday, three ships of the Ukrainian Navy, in violation of Articles 19 and 21 of the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea, crossed the Russian sea border, entered the temporarily closed area of the Russian territorial waters, and were moving from the Black Sea toward the Kerch Strait, according to the Russian Federal Security Service (FSB).
Another group of ships was heading for the Kerch Strait from the Azov Sea port of Berdyans'k.
Later on Sunday, the FSB reported that the same three ships of the Ukrainian Navy � Berdyansk, Nikopol and Yany Kapu � had been detained after violating Russian state border. The Ukrainian ships did not react to legal demands of the ships accompanying them and made dangerous maneuvers, the FSB noted.
Earlier on Monday, a spokesman for the FSB Border Directorate for Crimea, Anton Lozovoy, said that the seized vessels were being convoyed to the port of Kerch and that three lightly wounded Ukrainian soldiers had received medical assistance.
