Southern Federal District

Up to 20 people, including eight Turks, were presumed dead off Russian-annexed Crimea after a fire engulfed two fuel ships, authorities have said.

A Ukraine government plan to embarrass Russian President Vladimir Putin at the G20 summit failed Thursday when an Argentine company refused to erect a protest poster outside the meeting, AFP reports.

Vladimir Varimez from the village of Bankovka is one of the 24 sailors who were arrested after three Ukrainian ships tried to cross the Kerch Strait, bTV reported.

The information was confirmed by the mayor of the village Viktor Genchev.

He added that Vladimir's father is still in Bankovka, but it is possible at some point to leave for Sevastopol to try to meet his son.

U.S. Ambassador Nikki Haley says an emergency meeting of the United Nations Security Council has been called over the escalating situation between Russia and Ukraine, reported the Time. 

Haley tweeted that a meeting has been called for 11 a.m. Monday.

Ukraine's navy said that Russia's border guards rammed one of its tugboats in the Black Sea off Moscow-annexed Crimea on Sunday in "openly aggressive actions."

The Ukrainian Embassy in Bulgaria condemned the illegal visit of several Bulgarian politicians and journalists to the occupied Crimea to attend a Week of Bulgarian Culture held on September 7-11.

This was stated in a statement by the Embassy of Ukraine in the Republic of Bulgaria, published on its Facebook page.

On 18 June 2018, the Council extended the restrictive measures in response to the illegal annexation of Crimea and Sevastopol by Russia until 23 June 2019.

The measures apply to EU persons and EU based companies. They are limited to the territory of Crimea and Sevastopol. The sanctions include prohibitions on:

France said on Sunday it would not recognize Russia's election in the Crimea peninsula, four years to the day after Russia formally annexed the territory from Ukraine in a move slammed by the West as illegal.

The Foreign Affairs Ministry (MAE) supports and joins the declaration of High Representative of the European Union for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy (HR) Federica Mogherini regarding the illegal annexation of the Crimean Peninsula, according to a press release sent on Saturday.

A 56-year-old Bulgarian sailor was killed in a fire on board the ferry "The heroes of Sevastopol", which is currently in the Georgian port of Poti, the BNR reported.

The incident is yet to be investigated, but a short circuit in one of the cabins is suspected to be the cause. The sailor suffocated from the smoke during the fire while the ferry was passing by Sochi.