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SENIOR politicians from Germany, Austria, Poland and Estonia yesterday raised the possibility of new EU sanctions against Russia to punish it for capturing three Ukrainian vessels at sea, an incident the West fears could ignite wider conflict.
Financial markets have responded to the prospect of new Western sanctions that could hurt Russia’s economy, though the rouble yesterday clawed back some losses from the previous day. After Russia opened fire on and seized three Ukrainian naval vessels on Sunday near Russian-annexed Crimea, both Russia and Ukraine are trying to cast the other side as being in the wrong.
President Vladimir Putin told German Chancellor Angela Merkel by phone on Monday that Moscow was ready to provide more details of events. Moscow says Ukraine deliberately provoked Russia to trigger a crisis.
Ukraine, which on Monday night introduced martial law for 30 days in parts of the country it deems most vulnerable to an attack from Russia, said its ships did nothing wrong and that it wanted the West to impose new sanctions on Moscow.
Some of the more than 20 Ukrainian sailors held by Russia for straying into Russian waters appeared on Russian state TV yesterday admitting to being part of a pre-planned provocation. Kiev denounced what it described as forced confessions.
The Ukrainian sailors were expected to appear in a Russian court yesterday.
Their vessels were captured at sea near the Kerch Strait, which is the only outlet to the Sea of Azov and controls access to major Ukrainian ports.
Germany called on both sides to de-escalate the new tension, while signalling a tougher line towards Russia. Norbert Roettgen, a member of Chancellor Angela Merkel’s Christian Democratic Union and a Merkel ally, said Europe may need to toughen sanctions against Moscow.
With relations still raw after Russia’s 2014 annexation of Crimea and its backing for a pro-Moscow insurgency in eastern Ukraine, many Western countries fear the Black Sea incident could escalate into a more serious conflict. In Kerch, two Russian police officers with automatic rifles stood on the pier where the Ukrainian vessels were moored. The vessels bore traces of collisions and big holes in their hulls.
Commercial shipping traffic was passing through the strait under a new bridge built by Russia that spans it.
Russia’s FSB security service released video footage yesterday of captured Ukrainian sailors, saying their actions were deliberately provocative and they had ignored Russian orders to stop. At least one appeared to be reading from a script. Ukrainian politicians said the sailors were coerced.
The FSB said it had information showing that two intelligence officers from Ukraine’s SBU security service had been on board to co-ordinate the provocation. The SBU confirmed that officers were on board to support the military and said one had been seriously wounded.
Meanwhile, 45 000 people were evacuated yesterday because of bomb threats in 22 cities across Russia, state media reported. Many of the calls have been traced back to Ukraine.