VLADIVOSTOK - Eighteen Chinese fishermen detained off Russia's Far-East region last year have been released and returned home, the Chinese consulate office said Tuesday.

Song Liqun, vice consul-general at the Chinese Consulate in Khabarovsk and director of the Chinese consulate office in Vladivostok, told Xinhua that the fishermen have gone back to China from the Poltavka border crossing in Russia's Far East.

The Chinese consulate chartered a bus to transport the Chinese nationals from the east Russian port of Nakhodka, where they had been held, to Poltavka, Song said.

The 18 Chinese and their fishing boat from China's eastern Shandong province were seized by the Russian coastal service for entering Russia's exclusive economic zone.

Four Chinese fishing boats have been detained by Russia in July.