Moscow’s court extends arrest of all 24 captured Ukrainian sailors

The lawyers of Ukrainian sailors filed a motion on transferring the trial to a military court, insisting that their clients are the prisoners of war. However, the judge denied the motion, Hromadske reports.

The investigators of the Federal Security Service of the Russian Federation asked to extend the term of arrest of Ukrainian sailors, pointing to the alleged risk of hiding the suspects from the investigation. The lawyers claimed that the investigators did not actually substantiate that risk.

The sailors fully supported their lawyers and answered only those questions of a judge, which related to their names and ranks, referring to the Geneva Convention.

Earlier, the court granted a motion of an investigator of the Federal Security Service of the Russian Federation on holding the court hearings behind the closed doors. The lawyers stated there was no reason for that as there were no secret documents in the case files.

On January 15, the Lefortovsky District Court in Moscow extended the arrest of twenty Ukrainian prisoners of war.

On November 25, 2018, Russian border ships fired on and seized in the Kerch Strait three Ukrainian vessels that were moving from the port of Odesa to the port of Mariupol. A total of 24 Ukrainian sailors were captured.

Russian-controlled "courts" in occupied Crimea arrested all sailors for two months, and they were taken to Moscow.

Twenty-one Ukrainian servicemen are held in Moscow's Lefortovo remand prison, and three more wounded sailors stay in the Matrosskaya Tishina remand prison.

The coordinator of the team of lawyers, Nikolai Polozov, said that all Ukrainian sailors captured by Russia told investigators that they are prisoners of war.