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Azov ports under pressure after Kerch Strait seizures
Summary
A look back at 30 November 2018, five days after Russia seized three Ukrainian Navy vessels and Kyiv said its Azov ports were effectively blockaded.
What did the Kerch Strait confrontation mean for Ukraine's ports by 30 November 2018? Five days after the incident, Kyiv described a sea region in which commercial access had been cut off, and it was seeking help from abroad.
The incident of 25 November
On 25 November 2018, Russia stopped three Ukrainian Navy vessels from passing under the Kerch Strait Bridge by blocking the way with a cargo ship. Russia said the vessels 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 that its ships had done anything wrong.
As described later, the Russian Federal Security Service coast guard fired upon and captured the vessels as they tried to transit from the Black Sea into the Sea of Azov on their way to the port of Mariupol.
Kyiv's response
Ukraine's National Security and Defense Council held an emergency meeting on 25 November in response to the blockade of the strait and the seizure of the vessels. President Petro Poroshenko said afterwards that he would ask the Verkhovna Rada to support a declaration of martial law. On 26 November the Rada approved martial law in 10 oblasts for a period of 30 days.
The same day, Russia asked for an urgent meeting of the United Nations Security Council. The Kerch Strait was also re-opened to commercial shipping on 26 November.
The situation on 29 November
By 29 November, however, Ukraine's Infrastructure Minister, Volodymyr Omelyan, said the ports of Berdiansk and Mariupol were effectively under blockade, because Russia would not let any Ukrainian vessels leave or enter the Sea of Azov. On the same day Poroshenko called on NATO to send warships to patrol the Sea of Azov.
Where things stood on 30 November
On 30 November 2018, those claims and that request were the most recent public positions in the dispute. Kyiv maintained that its ships had broken no rules, and Moscow maintained that they had crossed into its waters. The ports of Berdiansk and Mariupol, in Kyiv's account, remained cut off from Ukrainian shipping.
The episode was also described later as the first time Russian forces had openly engaged Ukrainian forces during the Russo-Ukrainian War.
