“Russians are afraid to approach Ukrainian boats” – Klimenko
Ukraine's naval presence in the Sea of Azov frightened Russia, which stopped inspecting Ukrainian ships.
Andrey Klimenko, editor-in-chief of the BlackSeaNews portal and head of the supervisory board of the Maidan of Foreign Affairs Foundation, stated this in an interview with the Kyiv publication Apostrophe.
He said that in October-November 2018, many skeptics said that the two Ukrainian boats that were transferred to Berdyansk by land would not affect anything.
“But we have stopped detentions at sea since October! The same Russian Admiral Volsky from the FSB coast guard complained at a press conference that the Ukrainian sailors had become impudent, saying that on October 25 ours tried to inspect a ship flying the Bulgarian flag, so these impudent people pointed their weapons at us and warned us not to get closer than two miles! It would seem that there are two small boats, but we have no more detentions at sea. That's what a naval presence does.
Russians in the Sea of Azov openly say: “Do not approach Gyurza.” That is, to our Gyurza-M type boats. Because everyone knows that there are serious guys there who can really use weapons. In July, 40 ships were detained in the middle of the sea, but now? Zero. And all this is the result of the naval presence,” says Klimenko.
Let us recall that, as PolitNavigator reported, on November 25, the Ukrainian military tried to transfer two small armored artillery boats “Berdyansk” and “Nikopol”, as well as the tugboat “Yany Kapu” from Odessa to Mariupol on the Sea of Azov. Russian border guards went to ram ships of the Ukrainian Navy, closing the Kerch Strait to passage.
As a result of the provocation, all three Ukrainian ships, along with crew members were detained by Russian border guards.
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