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Kerch Strait clash reaches Kyiv and Washington
Summary
A retrospective on 27 November 2018, two days after the Kerch Strait incident, as martial law neared and a planned Trump–Putin meeting came into doubt.
What did the Kerch Strait incident change in the days that followed? By 27 November 2018, the answer already stretched from Ukraine's parliament to the sidelines of a G20 summit in Buenos Aires.
The incident took place on 25 November 2018. Russia's Federal Security Service coast guard fired upon and captured three Ukrainian Navy vessels as they tried to pass from the Black Sea into the Sea of Azov on their way to the port of Mariupol. It was later described as the first time Russian forces had openly engaged Ukrainian forces during the Russo-Ukrainian War.
Kyiv acts
The response in Kyiv was swift. On 25 November, an emergency meeting of the National Security and Defense Council was convened over the Russian blockade of the strait and the seizure of the vessels. Afterwards, President Petro Poroshenko said he would ask the Verkhovna Rada to support a declaration of martial law. Parliament was set to meet in emergency session at 4 p.m. local time on 26 November.
That day, the Rada approved martial law in 10 oblasts of Ukraine for 30 days, to begin on 28 November 2018. By 27 November, the measure was one day from taking effect.
Washington weighs in
The clash also reached great-power diplomacy. On 27 November 2018, U.S. President Donald Trump said he might cancel his scheduled meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin at that week's G20 summit in Buenos Aires, citing Russia's maritime clash with Ukraine.
The remark tied a confrontation in a narrow waterway to the wider relationship between Washington and Moscow. A planned encounter between the two presidents was now in question because of events at sea, while in Kyiv the legislature had already moved to put parts of the country under martial law.
A short, dense run of days
The sequence was compressed: a naval confrontation on 25 November, an emergency security council meeting and the president's announcement the same day, a parliamentary vote on 26 November, and on 27 November a warning from the U.S. president about his own summit plans. Martial law was due to start on 28 November, for a term of 30 days, in 10 oblasts.
