U.S. Special Representative for Ukraine Negotiations Kurt Volker has said that Russia did not offer Ukraine to release the captured Ukrainian sailors, and this "offer" was an insult to justice.

"Russia Did Not Offer to Free Ukrainian Sailors it Captured. It's 'offer' was an affront to justice, since there was no basis to detain them in the first place, as well as an affront to the UN and Ukrainian sovereignty. It was a trap," Volker wrote on Twitter.

As reported, on June 27, President of Ukraine Volodymyr Zelensky during a briefing expressed outrage at the actions of Ukraine's Foreign Ministry and its head Pavlo Klimkin, because the president had not been informed about the Foreign Ministry's note on captured Ukrainian sailors. The note was received two days earlier, in it Ukraine was offered to provide written guarantees of continued criminal prosecution of Ukrainian sailors in accordance with Russian legislation in the event of their return home. For the extradition of sailors, the Russian Federation demanded their further participation in the judicial process on the territory of the occupied Crimea, thereby forcing to recognize de facto the jurisdiction of the Russian Federation over the peninsula. The Ukrainian Foreign Ministry called the position of Moscow unacceptable.