Moscow court rejects appeal by Ukrainian sailors

Описание: (13 Feb 2019) A Moscow court on Wednesday rejected an appeal by a group of Ukrainian sailors against the extension of their pre-trial detention.
The eight sailors Mikhail Vlasyuk, Denis Gritsenko, Vyacheslav Zinchenko, Andrey Drach, Yuri Bezyazichnyi, Yuri Budzilo, Bogdan Nebilitsa and Sergei Chuliba appeared in a cage in the court room.
Speaking after the hearing, a lawyer for some of the men, Nikolai Polozov, said the court's decision "was easy to predict"
Last month the court extended until April the detention of eight Ukrainian seamen who were among 24 captured by Russian coast guards in the Black Sea.
Three Ukrainian vessels and their crews were fired at and seized by the Russians in November.
Russia insists the men should be put on trial for violating its border. Ukraine calls them prisoners of war who were illegally captured.
The confrontation on the Black Sea triggered a showdown between Russia and Ukraine in the simmering conflict over Russia's 2014 annexation of the Crimean peninsula.
Russia seized Crimea in a move that Ukraine and most of the world views as illegal.

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