Ukrainian sailors on U.S.-seized Russian tanker may be hostages, not traitors — expert

Oleksii Sivak, a sailor from Kherson who worked on international voyages for over 17 years, expressed this opinion on Espreso TV. During the Russian occupation of his city, he openly supported Ukraine and spent 59 days in FSB prisons and basements as a result.

"We can say that the crew didn't have access to information about the cargo's sanctions status or the vessel's true owners, who typically hide behind a network of shadow fleet offshore companies. The sailors may simply not have known what they were transporting or where. According to available information, the ship changed its name and switched to the Russian flag during the voyage while the crew was at sea. In reality, only the captain – a Georgian citizen – had full understanding of the actual situation," Sivak says.

He believes the sailors may have become hostages to political decisions made by the ship's owner.

"Besides, some of the crew are from Russian-occupied Crimea. And here's my question: why did Russia take back its three citizens but not the Crimeans? Does this mean Russia itself doesn't consider Crimea its territory? There's very little reliable information right now, so it's hard to draw final conclusions. I can't judge whether they're traitors or not. But those who consciously work for the aggressor have already made their choice – and they'll have to live with it, along with their families," says the head of the Alumni public organization.

Sivak also noted that sailors often find themselves in difficult situations: through carelessness, unwillingness to investigate the ship's real owner or cargo nature, or simply through circumstances that no one is immune to.

"There are cases when the entire crew is held responsible for illegal cargo, regardless of who's actually at fault. That's why you need to be very careful when choosing a crewing agency, ship owner, and crew composition," the expert emphasizes.

• On January 7, the U.S. Coast Guard and military conducted an operation to seize an oil tanker linked to Venezuela. This involves the vessel Bella 1, which had been trying to evade the American blockade near Venezuela for over two weeks. It later became known – and was confirmed by the Ukrainian embassy in the U.S. – that 17 crew members are Ukrainian sailors.