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Azov ports under blockade after Kerch clash
Summary
A look back at 30 November 2018, five days after Russian forces seized three Ukrainian Navy vessels and as Kyiv described its Azov ports as cut off.
What did the standoff in the Sea of Azov look like on 30 November 2018, five days after Russian forces fired on and seized three Ukrainian Navy vessels near the Kerch Strait?
The incident began on 25 November 2018. Russia stopped the three vessels from passing under the Kerch Strait Bridge by blocking it with a cargo ship. Moscow said the Ukrainian ships had violated its territorial waters and ignored warnings. Shots were fired, and the vessels and their crews were seized. Russia said three Ukrainians were wounded, while Ukraine put the number of wounded sailors at six. Kyiv denied that its ships had done anything wrong. As later described, the vessels had been trying to travel from the Black Sea into the Sea of Azov on their way to the port of Mariupol, and it was the first time Russian forces had openly engaged Ukrainian forces during the Russo-Ukrainian War.
Kyiv's response
The same day, Ukraine convened an emergency meeting of its National Security and Defense Council in response to the Russian blockade of the Kerch Strait and the seizure of its vessels. President Petro Poroshenko said afterwards that he would ask the Verkhovna Rada to support a declaration of martial law. On 26 November 2018 the parliament approved martial law in 10 oblasts of Ukraine for a period of 30 days.
Also on 26 November, Russia asked for an urgent meeting of the United Nations Security Council, and the Kerch Strait was re-opened to commercial shipping.
The state of the ports
By 29 November 2018, Ukrainian officials were describing continuing disruption in the Sea of Azov. 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. Poroshenko called on NATO to send warships to patrol the Sea of Azov.
That was the position as 30 November 2018 began: the seized ships and crews remained in Russian hands, martial law was in force in 10 Ukrainian oblasts, and Kyiv was publicly pressing for a Western naval presence while accusing Moscow of shutting its two Azov ports off from shipping.
