Russia fires on Ukraine ships off Crimea
Seizure of vessels sparks alarm at UN
KIEV: Russia has seized three Ukrainian naval ships in waters near Moscowannexed Crimea, raising fears of military escalation and prompting an emergency meeting of the UN Security Council yesterday.
In an unprecedented incident, Russia used weapons against the Ukranian ships which it claims illegally entered its waters before boarding and searching them, the country’s FSB security service confirmed.
The crisis unfolded on Sunday as two Ukrainian small warships and a tugboat were heading through the Kerch Strait, a narrow waterway that gives access to the Sea of Azov that is used by Ukraine and Russia.
Ukraine said a Russian border guard vessel rammed the tugboat in “openly aggressive actions” and then fired on the ships, immobilising all three.
It said the Kerch Strait was blocked by a tanker and that Russian military aircraft were flying over the area.
The confrontation at sea is a dangerous development in the long-running conflict pitting Ukraine against Moscow and Russian-backed rebels in the east of the country.
The UN Security Council was scheduled to hold an emergency meeting yesterday to discuss the escalation, US ambassador to the UN Nikki Haley said. The meeting was requested by both Russia and Ukraine, diplomatic sources said.
Meanwhile, Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko asked parliament to vote yesterday on whether to impose martial law on the country for 60 days, after his military cabinet recommended the move in a latenight meeting.
Throwing his weight behind the measure, which is not guaranteed to pass, he said it “in no way means that Ukraine will carry out any offensive actions”.
“I want to emphasise separately that we have all irrefutable evidence that this aggression, this attack on the Ukrainian Navy’s warships was not a mistake, not an accident, but a deliberate action,” he said in a statement.
Ukraine said six of its soldiers were injured, two seriously, but Russia’s FSB reported only three had suffered non-life threatening injuries and were given medical treatment.
Protesters, some armed with flares, rallied outside the Russian embassy in Kiev on Sunday night in response to the latest development.
The seizure has sparked alarm among Kiev’s Western allies.
“We expect Russia to restore freedom of passage at the Kerch Strait and urge all to act with utmost restraint to de-escalate the situation immediately,” the European Union said in a statement.
Nato also urged “restraint and de-escalation”, and called on Russia “to ensure unhindered access to Ukrainian ports in the Azov Sea, in accordance with international law”.
Ukraine’s foreign ministry said the “aggressive actions” were a violation of international law that would be met with “an international and diplomatic legal response”.
Russia claims the waters off Crimea after annexing the peninsula in 2014.
“Having breached this morning the Russian border, the three Ukrainian ships — the Berdyansk, the Nikopol and the Yani Kapu — tried again on Nov 25 at 7pm local time to conduct illegal actions in Russian territorial waters,” the FSB said on Sunday.
Russian politicians have accused Ukraine of acting at the behest of its Western allies in an attempt to escalate the conflict.