The FSB Investigation Department has filed a final accusation against all 24 Ukrainian sailors captured in the Kerch Strait in the autumn of 2018. This is reported by the Russian Interfax with reference to coordinator of the military defense team, lawyer Nikolai Polozov.
According to him, if the accusation is presented in the final version, it means that the active phase of investigation of the case, connected with the collection and procedural fixing of evidence, is completed.
The preliminary investigation is currently ongoing. As part of it, the defense and the defendants are going to start examining the case file at the end of July, the lawyer added.
There are about 20 volumes of the case materials. Polozov believes that it will take at least three months to study them.
According to the lawyer, next week, the investigation intends to apply to the Lefortovo Court of Moscow with a request to extend the period of arrest against all sailors. According to the lawyer, court sessions on the extension of the measure of restraint will be held on July 17.
The report reminds that on November 25, 2018, Russian security forces detained the Yany Kapu Ukrainian tugboat and Berdiansk and Nikopol small armored artillery boats, which were heading from Odessa to Mariupol, in the Kerch Strait area with the use of weapons. 24 Ukrainians aboard, two of whom are members of the Security Service of Ukraine (SBU), were charged with "illegal border crossing".
Among those arrested were commanders of the Yany Kapu tugboat Oleh Melnychuk, Nikopol armored artillery boat - Bohdan Nebylytsia, Berdiansk armored artillery boat - Roman Mokriak, division of service ships of the Yug (South - ed.) naval base of the Ukrainian Navy - Volodymyr Lisovyi; the SBU staff Andriy Drach and Vasyl Soroka; crew members Denys Hrytsenko, Yuriy Bezyazychnyi, Vyacheslav Zinchenko, Yevhen Semidotskyi and Andriy Shevchenko, Andriy Oprysko, Serhiy Tsybizov, Yuriy Budzylo, Volodymyr Tereshchenko, Viktor Bespalchenko, Volodymyr Varymez, Mykhaylo Vlasiuk, Bohdan Holovash, Serhiy Chulib, Vladyslav Kostyshyn, Serhiy Popov, Andriy Artemenko and Andriy Eider.