Foreign Minister of Ukraine Pavlo Klimkin after a briefing of Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky on Thursday posted notes of Russia and Ukraine regarding Ukrainian sailors who were captured by Russian forces in the Kerch Strait in November 2018 in the Facebook social network.
“To lift all the questions, I call your attention to two diplomatic notes. The first is the Russian trap, by the way primitive, the second is our response, which reveals the hidden motives of the Russian Federation,” Klimkin wrote on his Facebook page.
So, Klimkin said that Russia does not want to implement the decision of the International Tribunal for the Law of the Sea. “Instead, it: a) requires us to admit that our sailors could commit a crime, b) persuade us to recognize the lawfulness of the judicial process against them under Russian law, c) invites us to bend over to the criminal procedure code of the Russian Federation, and at the same time indirectly recognize the occupation of Crimea,” the foreign minister of Ukraine wrote.
Klimkin said that the Russian Federation can “without problems” complete all internal processes for the release of Ukrainian sailors.
“The trap was prepared for our sailors, for our legal and diplomatic team, for the country’s leadership. Unfortunately, someone in the President’s Office fell for the oldest trick,” Klimkin said.
He said that the decision of the International Tribunal is unambiguous: Russia is obliged to immediately and without conditions release the sailors and ships.
At the same time, Klimkin noted problems with communication from the side of the president. “The whole diplomatic world knows where to look for me. As they say, I am easy to find, hard to lose and impossible to forget,” he wrote.
As reported, on Thursday, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said that he is indignant at the fact that Ukraine’s parliament is reluctant to back the resignation of Klimkin and to appoint the presidential nominee, Vadym Prystaiko, therefore the president learns about important steps of Ukraine in the international arena from the Internet.
