Ukraine-Russia tensions soar after Black Sea naval incident

MOSCOW — Russia’s coast guard opened fire on and seized three of Ukraine’s vessels Sunday, wounding two crew members, after a tense standoff in the Black Sea near the Crimean Peninsula, the Ukrainian navy said.

Russia blamed Ukraine for provoking the incident, which sharply escalated tensions that have been growing since Moscow annexed Crimea from Ukraine in 2014.

Earlier in the day, Russia and Ukraine traded accusations over a separate incident involving the same vessels, prompting Moscow to block passage through the narrow Kerch Strait, which separates the peninsula from the Russian mainland.

The Ukrainian navy said two of its gunboats were struck and Russian crews boarded and seized them and an accompanying tugboat.

The European Union and NATO called for restraint from both sides and for Moscow to restore access to the strait, which Ukraine uses to move ships to and from ports on either side of the peninsula.

Ukrainian authorities said they had given advance notice to the Russians that the vessels would be moving through the strait, which connects the Black Sea to the Sea of Azov.

Russia said the three Ukrainian vessels made an unauthorized passage through Russian territorial waters.

The tugboat, which was rammed, was traveling with the two Ukrainian gunboats from Odessa on the Black Sea to Mariupol, an eastern Ukraine port, via the Kerch Strait.

The Kerch Strait is the only passage into the Sea of Azov. The strait is spanned by the recently completed Kerch Bridge, connecting Crimea to Russia. Transit under the bridge has been blocked by a tanker ship, and dozens of cargo ships awaiting passage are stuck.

Russia has not given any indication of how long it will block the strait, but a longterm closure to would amount to an economic blockade.

Although a 2003 treaty designates the Kerch Strait and Sea of Azov as shared territorial waters, Russia has been asserting greater control over the passage since 2015.

Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko said he would ask parliament Monday to take up the issue of whether to implement martial law over the incident.