Crimea court upholds arrest of five Ukrainians from Navy ships detained in Black Sea

The Supreme Court of Crimea on Tuesday upheld the arrest of four navy sailors and one Ukrainian intelligence officer, who had been on board of Ukrainian Navy ships detained in the Black Sea a month ago, the court has told Interfax.

The court has dismissed the appeals of lawyers against the ruling handed down by Simferopol's Kyivsky District Court and clarified the date when the arrest ends, as the first instance court had made a technical error. The Ukrainians are thus arrested until January 24, 2019 rather than January 25.

The Ukrainians in question are leading seaman Viacheslav Zynchenko, captain third rank Volodymyr Lysovy, sailor Serhiy Chulyba, midshipman Andriy Shevchenko, and Ukrainian Security Service (SBU) officer Andriy Drach.

They are being held in the Lefortovo pretrial detention facility in Moscow.

On December 19-21 and December 24, the Crimean Supreme Court extended the custody of ten Ukrainian sailors, namely Volodymyr Varymez, Andriy Oprysko, Yuriy Budzylo, Serhiy Tsybizov, Bohdan Holovash, Serhiy Popov, Mykhailo Vlasiuk, Viktor Bespalchenko, Vladyslav Kostyshyn, and Berdiansk gunboat commander Roman Mokriak and corrected the technical mistake of a lower instance court.

On December 25 the court is due to hear appeals of the defense of sailors Viacheslav Zynchenko, Volodymyr Lysovy, Serhiy Chulyba, Andriy Shevchenko, and SBU officer Andriy Drach.