“Ukraine received a convincing diplomatic victory and a powerful additional international legal trump card in order to achieve the earliest possible release of our sailors,” the diplomat told Ukrinform.

He called the “historic” decision of the International Tribunal for the Law of the Sea on the incident in the Kerch Strait on November 25, 2018.

According to Melnik, Ukraine now has the right to apply to the German Foreign Ministry with a demand to influence Moscow.

“If Moscow decides to ignore this decision, then we will promote the idea of ​​introducing new - Hamburg - sanctions against Russia,” the ambassador stressed.

On May 25, the UN International Tribunal for the Law of the Sea demanded that Russia release 24 sailors and three ships of the Ukrainian Navy detained for violating the Russian border.

The Russian Foreign Ministry ruled out the possibility of invoking the 1982 UN Convention on the Law of the Sea to resolve the dispute over the incident in the Kerch Strait and stated that the arbitration court has no jurisdiction to consider this issue.