We are talking about the seizure of a Ukrainian ship.

Ukraine received the first procedural order of the Arbitral Tribunal in the case of “the Dispute about the detention of three Ukrainian naval ships and their crews”.

This was reported by Deputy Minister of foreign Affairs of Ukraine Elena zerkal on his page on Facebook, writes apostrophe.ua.

“It was important for us to lock in the name of not only Russia’s violation of international law, but also to reflect that this argument applies to our sailors, who spent 9 months in prison. And Arbitration be heard”, – she wrote.

Zerkal noted that Russia managed to delay Ukraine and Arbitration in a long and multistage process. According to the schedule we should present his Memorandum for the 6 months, but nothing prevents us to prepare and file it before.

“And of the filing of the Memorandum the Russians will be 3 months in order to exercise your right to Express objections to jurisdiction – to play their favorite game challenge the right of Arbitration to consider this matter, using already clear the line, which they unsuccessfully tried to impose on the judges in Hamburg and the exclusion of their jurisdiction of military activities. Since military activities in accordance with the statement made by Russia to the Convention, excluded from the jurisdiction of the International Tribunal for the law of the sea, and Arbitral Tribunal,” – said the Minister.

Thus Ukraine has a right to comment on the objections of the Russians and to go to Arbitration with the request to reject them. Our position is that to decide the question of jurisdiction in this case apart from consideration of the facts impossible.

“Accordingly, the Tribunal must determine whether there are grounds for splitting the process in 2 stages (jurisdictional and substantive) and decide on further stages of the proceedings. In the case of a decision on the division of the process in phase 2 we will get 3 months to prepare a response to the Russian objections. If the separation does not happen, the Russians will be forced to file their Counter-memorial within the period of 6 months from the date of the Arbitration decision to reject the consideration of the previous objections of the Russian Federation at the jurisdictional stage,” wrote the mirror.

The arbitral Tribunal also determined that the written positions of the parties will be made public at the beginning of the oral proceedings. In addition, speech agents will be open, and public access to the rest of the hearings, decisions will be made additionally on the eve of Arbitration hearings. So, Russia will not be able to hide the facts and their violations from the General public and to distort history.

“Of course, it’s not going to be very fast, but is confident that the dignity and freedom we must fight to the end! The goal is the recognition of Russia as a country that violates military immunities and adequate compensation,” said the Minister.