MOSCOW – The closure of the Kerch Strait prior to the incident with the Ukrainian navy ships has been linked with the prevention of a provocative action, which could have been carried out against the Crimea Bridge among other targets, Alexei Volsky, the first deputy head of the Coastguard Department of the Russian Federal Security Service’s (FSB) Border Guard Service, said.
“Primarily, it was linked with the prevention of a provocation, a provocative action, which could have been carried out by the Ukrainian Navy ships both against the Crimea Bridge and navigation security in the Kerch-Yenikale Canal,” Volsky said at a briefing on Dec. 8.
The Ukrainian sailors, detained during the incident in the Kerch Strait, did not sustain any direct gunshot wounds, Mikhail Shishov, the director of the investigative department of the FSB, said at the briefing.
“There are no direct gunshot wounds,” Shishov said.
The sailors sustained fragment wounds when the boat had been damaged, he said.
He also said that the Ukrainian sailors, who had been arrested following the incident in the Kerch Strait, cannot be considered as prisoners of war, because Russia and Ukraine are not engaged in a conflict or at war.
“The aforementioned Ukrainian citizens are suspected of committing a crime and cannot be considered prisoners of war in accordance with the Convention Relative to the Treatment of Prisoners of War signed in Geneva on August 12, 1949, as the Russian Federation and Ukraine are not engaged in a military conflict or at war,” he said.
