Moscow - Russia announced on Monday that charges are to be made against the 24 military staff involved in a provocation of three small Ukrainian Navy ships in the Black Sea and near the Kerch Strait.

Out of 24 defendants, 21 are in Lefortovo prison and three are injured in a hospital in Matroskaya Tishina prison, all in Moscow.

Those involved could be sentenced to up to six years imprisonment for transgression of the Russian state border. On November 25, Verdiansk and Nikopol, as well as the tugboat Yani Kapu, illegally entered Russian territorial waters on the Black Sea off the coast of the Crimea and were arrested near the Kerch Strait.

After at least eight hours of dangerous maneuvers, without attending to calls to leave the Russian state border, the coastguards finally forcibly boarded the offenders on their way to the Crimean bridge.

During a press meeting at the G-20 summit in Buenos Aires, Russian President Vladimir Putin made it clear that the Ukrainian sailors had a mission to secretly pass through the Black Sea and through the Kerch Strait.

What objections can be made if it is directly written in the register of a ship that such boats are tasked with secretly entering our territorial waters and thus crossing the Kerch Strait?, Putin asked.

That was a calculated provocation, deriving from the analyzed documents and the sailors' own testimony, he said.

During the biggest events related to Ukraine, no one introduced martial law, and suddenly, now, before the elections, it is necessary to do so, said the Head of State.

This is done to limit civil rights and freedoms, as well as political activities in Ukraine. But even worse is the introduction of martial law in ten regions, precisely where President Piotro Poroshenko lacks support, he added.