The Russian Federation has fired at the Ukrainian Navy diving ship “Pochaiv” and damaged it with sniper’s bullets, the Naval Forces report on Facebook.
“In contrast to baseless allegations of Russian officials made, as usual, without any evidence, we have something to show — traces of sniper’s bullets”, said the Naval Forces.
The Federal Security Service of the Russian Federation (FSB) states that the “Pochaiv” was responsible for attacking the Chornomornaftogaz drilling platforms, “Tavrida” oil-extracting platform, according to some Russian media sources.
FSB reported about the attack on Russian drilling platform with vessel of the Ukrainian Navy on January 22, 2017, though nobody talked about it until now. The Deputy head of the FSB Border service of Russia Admiral Gennady Medvedev said in an interview to “Rossiyskaya Gazeta” that the incident happened on March 31, 2017. The Russian Admiral stated that Ukrainian “Hetman Sahaydachniy” frigate and “Pochaiv” diving support ship opened fire from automatic weapons on the rig “Tavrida”. The FSB has called the incident “a serious provocation”.
“The fact that there are still real threats to security of maritime economic activity in the Black Sea requires serious attention. On the 31st of March 2016, one of the vessels of the Ukrainian Naval Forces carried out provocative actions by opening fire with automatic small arms on the Tavrida jack-up drilling rig located in the Black Sea,” stated the Deputy head of the FSB Border service of Russia.
Recently, on September 2016, in Karkinit Bay in the territory of the Black Sea area of Ukrainian gas deposits were recorded illegal activities of Russian warships.
See also: 3 scenarios for the situation in Ukraine in 2016-2017
