The Russian tanker Nika Spirit following its seizure in Ukraine. July 25, 2019 State Border Service of Ukraine

Ukraine’s National Security Service (SBU) seized the Russian oil tanker Nika Spirit on July 25. The tanker had reportedly entered the Odessa region’s Izmail Port seeking repairs when it was stopped by Ukrainian officials. The SBU asserted that the tanker had taken part in the November 2018 conflict between Russian and Ukrainian vessels in the Kerch Strait; specifically, the tanker allegedly blocked the Kerch-Yenikalsky Canal, preventing three Ukrainian naval ships carrying 24 sailors from passing through. Russian forces subsequently seized those ships and arrested their crews, actions Ukraine considers illegal. The SBU is currently conducting a pretrial investigation into the tanker’s actions in the Kerch Strait.

The SBU’s capture of the Neyma National Security Service of Ukraine

The tanker was previously called the Neyma. The SBU argues that it was renamed “for the purpose of covering up its participation in acts of aggression.” The agency identified the tanker by its IMO identification number, a unique set of seven digits assigned to large vessels by the International Maritime Organization. The tanker was searched, and Ukrainian forces seized its logs as well as recordings of the crew’s radio communications. The security officials also interrogated members of the crew. The SBU announced that it intends to petition a court to sanction the tanker’s seizure as physical evidence in the investigation of the Kerch Strait conflict. Russia’s Foreign Affairs Ministry, meanwhile, confirmed that the tanker had been renamed in March 2019.

The tanker’s crew was freed, according to press attaché Denis Golenko of the Russian Embassy in Kyiv. Tatiana Moskalkova, the top human rights official in the Russian government, noted that there were 10 sailors on board the tanker. They did not face any legal charges and are scheduled to take a bus to Moldavia, where an airplane will transport them to Moscow. The tanker itself will remain in Izmail, according to the Russian Embassy in Ukraine. Russia’s Foreign Affairs Ministry announced that it would look into the circumstances of the tanker’s seizure “in order to take appropriate measures” in response.

An office belonging to the company that owns the tanker was searched in Gelendzhik, Russia. “Law enforcement officers have arrived here; they’re still here,” an anonymous representative for Fos Shipping Management told TASS. The ship was previously reported to be owned by a company called Altomar Shipping, which Russian emergency responders have since clarified is one of Fos’s assets. A source within the security forces of Russia’s Krasnodar region, where Gelendzhik is located, confirmed that a search had been conducted. The source indicated that security officers are attempting to clarify “the reasons for the decision to send the tanker to Ukraine.”

The Kerch Strait conflict How Russia captured three Ukrainian ships in the Black Sea

Report by Olga Korelina Translation by Hilah Kohen