Home › Opinion › What did Ukraine's martial law end achieve?
What did Ukraine's martial law end achieve?
Summary
A retrospective on the lifting of martial law after the Kerch Strait naval incident, as seen from 28 December 2018.
What did it mean when Ukraine lifted martial law, and what did the country still face as 28 December 2018 arrived? Two days earlier, on 26 December 2018, martial law ended, a month after an attack on three Ukrainian Navy vessels near the Kerch Strait.
The incident took place on 25 November 2018. The Russian Federal Security Service (FSB) coast guard fired upon and captured three Ukrainian Navy vessels as they tried to pass from the Black Sea into the Sea of Azov through the strait, 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.
The end of martial law, then, closed a month-long emergency regime that followed that confrontation. As reported at the time, the measure was tied directly to the naval attack.
For readers looking back, the end of the regime marks a point in the aftermath of the Kerch Strait incident. The vessels were captured on 25 November 2018, and the decision to lift martial law came a month later.
