"[Ukraine] has not notified [Russia of the arrest] yet. The Consulate General in Odessa has sent a note to the [Ukrainian] Foreign Ministry with a request to clarify the situation. No response has been received to date", spokesman for the Russian Embassy in Kiev Denis Golenko said Tuesday, adding that the embassy had not received any notice of the ship's arrest either.
The Ukrainian Security Service said last week that it had detained the Russian Nika Spirit tanker in the port of Izmail in the Odessa Region. Earlier on Tuesday, Ukrainian Chief Military Prosecutor Anatoliy Matios said that a Ukrainian court arrested Nika Spirit along with the documents seized during the search aboard the vessel.
The Seafarers' Union of Russia said that it had not received any appeals neither from the ship's owner nor from the crew so far.
The Ukrainian side claims that the detained Nika Spirit tanker used to be called NEYMA and was allegedly used to block three Ukrainian vessels in the Kerch Strait in November 2018.
On 25 November 2018, Ukraine's Berdyansk and Nikopol gunboats and the Yany Kapu tugboat illegally crossed the Russian maritime border as they sailed toward the Kerch Strait, the entrance to the Sea of Azov.
Russia seized the Ukrainian vessels and detained 24 crew members after they failed to respond to a demand to stop. After the incident, a criminal case on illegal border crossing was opened in Russia.