Russia shrugs off pressure over Black Sea incident

MOSCOW >> Russia shrugged off Western condemnation of its capture of three Ukrainian naval ships and their crews, moving ahead Tuesday with court proceedings against some of the 24 detained sailors.

Ukraine, meanwhile, prepared to impose martial law in 10 of the country’s 27 regions after the country’s leaders warned of the threat of a Russian attack. Russian officials, however, brushed aside Kiev’s response as politically motivated alarmism and voiced confidence that Moscow would ride out the criticism and threats of deeper sanctions.

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.

The regions of Ukraine where martial law was set to take effect today include the Azov Sea coast as well as its waters.

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 troops along Ukraine’ s borders.

“We should be simply ready not to repeat once again the situation of the year 2014,” Poroshenko said.

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.

In a further sign of Russia’s resistance to Western pressure, 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 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 counter intelligence 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.