EU member states call on Russian authorities to immediately release Ukrainian sailors who were illegally detained by Russian border guards in the Kerch Strait, Lithuanian Foreign Minister Linas Linkevičius has said.

“It is completely unacceptable Russia still detains Ukrainian seamen and ships following military attack against Ukrainian navy in Black Sea. EU calls to release them immediately. Azov Sea does not belong to Russia, freedom of navigation must be granted. EU stands with Ukraine,” he wrote on Twitter.

Earlier, Denmark’s Foreign Minister Anders Samuelsen called on the European Union to impose additional sanctions against Russia over a stand-off with Ukraine in the Sea of Azov.

On November 25, 2018, Russian border ships in the Kerch Strait fired on and seized three Ukrainian warships that sailed from the port of Odesa to the port of Mariupol. Twenty-four Ukrainian sailors were captured.

After Russian-controlled "courts" in Crimea ruled to arrest the captured sailors, they were all taken to Moscow.

All of them called themselves prisoners of war.

On January 15 and 16, Moscow's Lefortovo District Court ruled to extend the arrest of captive Ukrainian sailors for three months. The lawyers of Ukrainian sailors challenged the ruling.

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