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Azov ports and a cancelled Trump–Putin meeting
Summary
A retrospective on 29 November 2018, when the fallout from the Kerch Strait clash reached Ukrainian ports and the G20 agenda.
What did the Kerch Strait clash change in practice by 29 November 2018? Within days, it had reached both Ukraine's ports and the diplomatic calendar of the G20 summit in Buenos Aires.
The incident dated from 25 November 2018, when the Russian Federal Security Service coast guard fired upon and captured three Ukrainian Navy vessels. They had tried to pass from the Black Sea into the Sea of Azov on their way to the port of Mariupol. It was the first time Russian forces had openly engaged Ukrainian forces during the Russo-Ukrainian War.
Ports under pressure
On 29 November, Ukraine's Infrastructure Minister Volodymyr Omelyan said the ports of Berdiansk and Mariupol were effectively under blockade. Russia, he said, was refusing to let any Ukrainian vessels leave or enter the Sea of Azov. President Petro Poroshenko went further and called on NATO to send warships to patrol the Sea of Azov.
A summit meeting called off
The clash also reshaped plans for the G20 gathering. On 27 November, US President Donald Trump said he might cancel his scheduled meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin because of the maritime confrontation. On 29 November, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said the meeting was still on. Trump then said he would probably meet Putin and that it was a good time to do so.
Less than an hour later, while flying to Argentina, Trump tweeted that he had cancelled the meeting after conferring with his top National Security advisers. He wrote that it was not a good time, since Russia had not returned the ships and sailors to Ukraine. The reversal came within a single hour.
A wider military backdrop
On the same day, the Belgian Air Component reported on Twitter that Belgian F-16s, operating 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. The report was separate from the Azov dispute, but it showed NATO aircraft and Russian aircraft in contact in the Baltic region.
Taken together, the day's reports showed a dispute that began at sea and was now being handled through trade access, alliance appeals and summit diplomacy. Kyiv sought a NATO naval presence, while Washington used the meeting with Putin as a lever over the return of the ships and sailors.
