Home › Opinion › Ukraine's tense days after the Kerch Strait clash
Ukraine's tense days after the Kerch Strait clash
Summary
A look back at the diplomatic and security fallout around 1 December 2018, as Kyiv faced a blockade of its Azov ports and a cancelled summit meeting.
What did Ukraine's position look like on 1 December 2018? Days after the Kerch Strait incident, the picture was one of blockaded ports, a cancelled summit meeting and new entry restrictions on Russian men.
The incident itself had occurred on 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 Mariupol. It was the first time Russian forces had openly engaged Ukrainian forces during the Russo-Ukrainian War.
A blockade in the Azov
On 29 November 2018, 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. President Petro Poroshenko called on NATO to send warships to patrol the sea.
A summit meeting called off
The same day, while flying to Argentina for the G20 summit in Buenos Aires, US President Donald Trump announced on Twitter that he had cancelled his planned meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin. He said that, after conferring with his top National Security advisers, he judged it not a good time, since Russia had not returned the ships and sailors to Ukraine. The Kremlin spokesman, Dmitry Peskov, had said the meeting was still on. Less than an hour before the announcement, Trump had said he would probably meet Putin and that it was a good time to do so.
Entry ban and a wider chill
On 30 November 2018, Ukraine banned Russian men aged between 16 and 60 from entering the country following the imposition of martial law. Poroshenko said the ban was meant to prevent the formation of private armies in Ukraine. Russia said it did not plan to retaliate.
Elsewhere, the Belgian Air Component reported on 29 November 2018 that its F-16s, operating in the Baltic region on NATO's Baltic Air Policing mission, had intercepted Russian Flanker jets, allegedly because they had no flight plan.
A different kind of news
Ukrainian headlines on 1 December 2018 were not only about confrontation. Oleksandr Gvozdyk beat Adonis Stevenson to become the WBC world light-heavyweight boxing champion.
