MOSCOW (Pakistan Point News / Sputnik - 26th May, 2019) NATO urged Russia to comply with the decision of the International Tribunal for the Law of the Sea (ITLOS), which demanded Moscow to release the Ukrainian sailors, who were detained by Russian authorities last November.�
Earlier in the day, ITLOS ruled that Moscow must release the 24 sailors who were aboard the three Ukrainian vessels Russia intercepted when they crossed the Russian maritime border as they sailed toward the Kerch Strait.
"NATO has made repeatedly clear that there was no justification for Russia's use of military force against Ukrainian ships and military personnel. We continue to call on Russia to release the Ukrainian sailors and ships without delay," a NATO official told Sputnik.
On November 25, Ukraine's Berdyansk and Nikopol gunboats, and the Yany Kapu tugboat illegally crossed the Russian maritime border as they sailed toward the Kerch Strait, the entrance to the Sea of Azov. Russia seized the Ukrainian vessels and detained crew members after they failed to respond to a demand to stop. After the incident, a criminal case on illegal border crossing was opened in Russia.
Moscow has repeatedly slammed Kiev's attempts to portray the detained sailors as prisoners of war, stressing that they faced criminal charges. Russian President Vladimir Putin said that the incident was a provocation prepared in advance as a pretext to declare martial law in Ukraine, which was announced after the incident and lasted for a month. Putin said the provocation might have been linked to then-Ukrainian leader Petro Poroshenko's low approval ratings before the presidential election, which his rival Volodymyr Zelensky ultimately won.
