The head of Ukraine’s security service Vasyl Hrytsak has confirmed that two of the service’s military counterintelligence agents were aboard the Ukrainian naval vessels attacked and captured by Russia’s coast guard in the Kerch Strait on Nov. 25.
“The officers of the Ukrainian special service were carrying out assignments regarding counter-intelligence support for a Ukrainian naval formation, as provided for under paragraph 12 of Ukraine’s law on the security service,” Hrytsak was quoted as saying in an SBU press statement issued early on Nov. 27.
Earlier, the Russian envoy to the United Nations, Dmitriy Polyanskiy, said at a Nov. 26 UN Security Council emergency session in New York that two SBU officers had been on board one of the Ukrainian military vessels trying to enter the Sea of Azov through the Russian-controlled Kerch Strait.
The SBU officers had the “special mission” of leading the Ukrainian convoy through the strait between Russian-occupied Crimea and Russia, which the Kremlin considers its internal waters, according to the Russian diplomat.
According to international law, although Crimea is under military occupation by Russia, the peninsula and its surrounding waters remain Ukrainian territory. The Kerch Strait is also governed by a 2003 treaty between Ukraine and Russia, still in force, which gives shared control of the Kerch Strait and Azov Sea to Ukraine and Russia.
The SBU responded to the Russian claims by saying that the SBU counterintelligence officers had been “carrying out duties to repel Russian aggression for over four years, alongside their comrades from the Armed Forces, the National Guard, and the State Border Guard Service.”
“And this will continue, forevermore,” the service said, adding that the presence of its agents on board Ukrainian naval vessels was not “astonishing.”
“The more astonishing thing is the fact that Russian deployed six (patrol boats) and four military warships, as well as combat helicopters and warplanes, against two Ukrainian patrol boats and a tug,” the SBU added.
“Besides, according to confirmed SBU intelligence, one of the Russian fighter (aircraft) attacked the Ukrainian vessels with two unguided missiles, as result of which one SBU officer was badly injured.”
Following the Nov. 25 incident in the Black Sea, after the Ukrainian navy vessels were taken to the port of Kerch in Russian-occupied Crimea, Russian media identified one of the detained SBU officers as Lieutenant Andriy Drach, who had been aboard the Nikopol patrol boat when it was attacked by Russia.
The SBU had not confirmed or revealed the identities of the allegedly detained SBU officers as of noon on Nov. 27.
