Russia-Ukraine tensions high
Ukraine decries sailors’ treatment
A Ukrainian sailor (right) is escorted to court Tuesday in Simferopol, Crimea, by agents of the Russian intelligence agency FSB after he and 23 others were captured when Russia seized three Ukrainian ships in the Kerch Strait on Sunday. Three sailors confessed on camera to intruding in Russian waters. Ukraine, warning of the threat of a Russian attack, was preparing to impose martial law today in some regions.
MOSCOW — Russia on Tuesday shrugged off Western condemnation of its capture of three Ukrainian naval ships and 24 sailors, three of whom confessed on camera to intruding into Russian waters.
Ukraine demanded that Russia stop using “psychological and physical pressure” on the sailors. Ukraine’s top diplomat called the men “prisoners of war,” telling The Associated Press that displaying them on TV was a crime.
Ukraine was preparing to impose martial law today in 10 of the country’s 27 regions, including the Azov Sea coast as well as its waters, after the country’s leaders warned of the threat of a Russian attack.
Russian officials, however, warned that Ukraine’s response could lead to additional hostilities.
“The introduction of martial law could potentially raise the threat of escalation of tensions in the region of conflict,” Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters.
The United States and the European Union have appealed to both Russia and Ukraine to exercise restraint after Sunday’s maritime clash in the narrow Kerch Strait between mainland Russia and Crimea, which Russia annexed from Ukraine in 2014.
Ukraine’s president, Petro Poroshenko, told CNN that Ukraine may restrict the ability of Russians to enter the country during the 30-day martial law period. The country had intelligence, he said, that Russia was concentrating large numbers of troops along Ukraine’s borders.
“We should be simply ready not to repeat once again the situation of the year 2014,” Poroshenko said. “We undertake all our efforts to defend and protect our sovereignty.”
But a Russian deputy foreign minister, Alexander Grushko, interpreted the Western calls for both sides to ease tensions as a signal that even Western officials believed Ukraine also shares some blame.
“This is a sort of acknowledgment, through their teeth, that the Ukrainian side is also at fault, even from their point of view,” Grushko said on the sidelines of a conference in Berlin, according to the Interfax news agency. “From a military point of view, this incident has now fully run its course.”
A court in Russian-controlled Crimea ordered at least two of the detained Ukrainian sailors to remain behind bars until at least Jan. 25 on charges of illegally crossing the border, Russian media reported.
Possible pressure increased on the detainees after Ukraine
acknowledged on Tuesday that the ships had onboard agents from its SBU intelligence service. Russia has claimed the agents were a mission to stir up “provocation” in the Kerch Strait. Ukraine says they were on normal counterintelligence operations for the navy.
The U.S. State Department on Monday had called for the detained sailors to be freed and Ukraine’s ships returned.
Sunday’s incident took place as three Ukrainian Navy ships were trying to pass through the Kerch Strait. Russia claims that Ukrainian sailors ignored the instructions of the pilot meant to guide them through the strait and illegally entered Russian territorial waters instead.
The Kerch Strait is a critical artery for Ukraine, giving the ports in the country’s industrial southeast access to shipping routes to Western Europe and Asia. While Russia and Ukraine agreed in 2003 on joint oversight of the strait and the adjoining Azov Sea, Russia has been effectively in control of it since its annexation of Crimea in 2014.
Tensions have risen in recent months after Russia’s new bridge between Crimea and the mainland limited the kinds of ships able to pass through the strait.
Russian state television on Tuesday broadcast separate interviews with three of the sailors, who said that the Russian coast guard repeatedly warned them that they were violating Russia’s territorial waters and urged them to leave. It was not clear if the men were talking under duress, but one was clearly reading from a script on camera.
When asked about the sailors, Ukrainian Foreign Minister Pavlo Klimkin said “even to put prisoners of war on television is already a crime.”
Klimkin said the use of force against the Ukrainian vessels was a “show of strength” by Russia intended to buttress Russian President Vladimir Putin’s approval ratings.
But Russian officials and state media cast the incident and the imposition of martial law as an attempt to shore up Poroshenko’s popularity ahead of a presidential election in March.
Information for this article was contributed by Anton Troianovski and Amie Ferris-Rotman of The
Washington Post; and by Nataliya Vasilyeva, Kate De Pury, Niko Price, Yuras Karmanau, Vladimir Isachenkov, Angela Charlton, Kirsten Grieshaber and Geir Moulson of The Associated Press.