The presence of NATO ships in the Black Sea will be a stabilizing factor in the region.

President of Ukraine Petro Poroshenko said this in an interview with Fox News, posted on his Facebook page.

"We need to increase the presence of NATO ships in the Black Sea. Putin uses Crimea for placing missiles there, for significantly increasing the Black Sea fleet. This creates extremely big danger and destabilizes the region. That is why the presence of NATO ships will become a stabilizing factor," the president stressed.

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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