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Kyiv's response after the Kerch Strait clash
Summary
A look back at where Ukraine, Russia and their partners stood on 3 December 2018, after a week of blockade claims, a cancelled summit meeting and an entry ban.
What did the days before 3 December 2018 leave behind in the confrontation between Kyiv and Moscow? A diplomatic and military standoff that had been building since the Kerch Strait incident of 25 November 2018, when Russia's Federal Security Service coast guard fired upon and captured three Ukrainian Navy vessels. The ships had been trying to pass from the Black Sea into the Sea of Azov on their way to the port of Mariupol.
A blockade at sea
By 29 November, Ukraine's Infrastructure Minister, Volodymyr Omelyan, said the ports of Berdiansk and Mariupol were effectively under blockade, because Russia was refusing to let any Ukrainian vessels leave or enter the Sea of Azov. On the same day President Petro Poroshenko called on NATO to send warships to patrol the Sea of Azov.
Washington changes course
On 27 November, U.S. President Donald Trump said he might cancel his planned meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin at the G20 summit in Buenos Aires because of the maritime clash. On 29 November, while flying to Argentina, he announced on Twitter that he had decided to cancel it after conferring with his top national security advisers. He said it was not a good time, since Russia had not returned the ships and sailors to Ukraine. The decision came after Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov had said the meeting was still on. Less than an hour before the tweet, Trump had said he would probably meet Putin and that he believed it was a good time to do so.
Martial law and an entry ban
On 30 November, under the martial law imposed in Ukraine, Kyiv banned Russian men aged between 16 and 60 from entering the country. Poroshenko said the measure was meant to prevent the formation of what he called private armies in Ukraine. Russia said it did not plan to retaliate.
NATO activity in the Baltic
Separately, on 29 November the Belgian Air Component reported on Twitter that its F-16s, flying in the Baltic region for NATO's Baltic Air Policing mission, had intercepted Russian Flanker jets the previous day, allegedly because they had no flight plan.
Where things stood
By 3 December 2018, the sequence was clear: a naval seizure, a claimed blockade of two Ukrainian ports, a call for NATO ships, a cancelled U.S.–Russia summit meeting and a new entry restriction on Russian men. Moscow had signalled no retaliation for the ban, while the question of the captured ships and sailors remained the stated reason for Washington's decision.
