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What the Kerch Strait crisis set in motion
Summary
A look back at the diplomatic and legal moves that followed the seizure of three Ukrainian Navy vessels.
What had changed by 27 November 2018, two days after Russian forces seized three Ukrainian Navy vessels near the Kerch Strait Bridge? The answer lay in a rapid sequence of political decisions in both capitals, set against sharply conflicting accounts of what happened at sea.
The incident
On 25 November 2018, Russia blocked the Kerch Strait Bridge passage with a cargo ship and stopped three Ukrainian Navy vessels. Moscow said the ships had violated its territorial waters and ignored warnings. The vessels and their crews were seized after shots were fired. Russia said three Ukrainians were wounded; Ukraine put the number of wounded sailors at six and denied its ships had done anything wrong. Later accounts described the vessels as trying to move from the Black Sea into the Sea of Azov on their way to the port of Mariupol, and called it the first time Russian forces had openly engaged Ukrainian forces in the Russo-Ukrainian War.
Kyiv's response
The same day, an emergency National Security and Defense Council meeting was convened in response to the blockade and the seizures. After it, President Petro Poroshenko said he would ask the Verkhovna Rada to back a declaration of martial law. Parliament met in emergency session on 26 November 2018 and approved martial law in 10 oblasts of Ukraine for 30 days.
Moscow's moves
Russia, for its part, asked for an urgent meeting of the United Nations Security Council on 26 November 2018. That left both sides taking the dispute to formal forums within a day of the clash, each presenting its own version of events.
Shipping resumes
Also on 26 November 2018, the Kerch Strait was re-opened to commercial shipping. The blockade that had accompanied the seizures was therefore short, even as the status of the captured vessels and their crews remained unresolved.
Why 27 November matters
By 27 November 2018 the episode had moved from a confrontation at sea to a contest of legal and diplomatic positions. Ukraine had put parts of the country under martial law for a fixed 30-day period, Russia had sought a Security Council hearing, and the strait was again open to commercial traffic. The disputed claims about territorial waters, warnings and the number of wounded sailors were the core of that contest, and the sailors and their ships remained in Russian hands.
