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What did martial law mean on 28 November 2018?
Summary
A retrospective on the day Ukraine's martial law took effect in ten oblasts, after the Kerch Strait clash and amid diplomatic fallout.
What changed in Ukraine on 28 November 2018, the day martial law took effect in ten oblasts? The measure followed the Kerch Strait incident of 25 November 2018, when the Russian Federal Security Service coast guard fired upon and captured three Ukrainian Navy vessels. The ships had been trying 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.
The decision of 26 November
On 26 November 2018 the Verkhovna Rada approved the introduction of martial law, in response to the actions of Russian border ships against Ukrainian Navy vessels in the strait. The regime covered ten oblasts and was set for 30 days, starting on 28 November 2018. The time limit and the defined list of regions are central to understanding the step: it was a bounded measure, not a nationwide, open-ended one.
The same day, the Kerch Strait was reopened to commercial shipping. Russia also asked for an urgent meeting of the United Nations Security Council. Within a single day, then, the confrontation produced a domestic legal response in Kyiv and a diplomatic move by Moscow.
Washington's reaction
The diplomatic effects reached beyond the two countries. On 27 November 2018, the US President, Donald Trump, said he might cancel his scheduled meeting with the Russian President, Vladimir Putin, at the G20 summit in Buenos Aires that week, citing Russia's maritime clash with Ukraine. The incident thus bore directly on a planned bilateral encounter between the two leaders.
Other news from the same days
Not all of the news was about the strait. On 26 November 2018 an international tribunal in Paris ordered Russia to pay Oschadbank 1.3 billion dollars. On 28 November 2018 itself, a Cabinet of Ministers decree returned the buildings of the Pochaiv Lavra to the Kremenets-Pochaiv Reserve.
Looking back
Taken together, the days from 25 to 28 November 2018 show a quick chain of events: a naval clash, a legislative decision, a diplomatic request at the UN, and a possible change to a summit schedule. Martial law in ten oblasts for 30 days began on 28 November 2018, and its start marked the point at which the strait incident became a matter of domestic law as well as international dispute.
