Russia fires on Ukrainian ships, injuring 2 and increasing tensions

MOSCOW – The Russian coastguard opened fire and seized three Ukrainian ships on Sunday, injuring two crew members after a tense battle in the Black Sea near the Crimean peninsula, the Ukrainian navy announced.

Russia has accused Ukraine of provoking this incident, which has greatly exacerbated tensions between the two countries since Moscow annexed Crimea to Ukraine in 2014, and has worked tirelessly to strengthen its control area around the peninsula.

Earlier in the day, Russia and Ukraine exchanged accusations regarding a separate incident involving the same vessels, which led Moscow to block the crossing into the narrow Kerch Strait, separating the peninsula from the Russian continent.

The Ukrainian Navy said that two of its gunboats had been hit and that Russian crews had boarded and seized them as well as a tugboat.

The Russian Federal Security Service, known as the FSB, which oversees the coastguard said that there was "irrefutable evidence that Kiev was planning and orchestrating provocations … in the Black Sea." documents will soon be made public ".

The FSB confirmed Monday morning that he had fired at the ships to force them to stop and then seized them.

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

BBC News said the EU called on Russia to "restore freedom of passage in the Kerch Strait" and called on "all to act with the utmost restraint". NATO has declared that it "fully supports the sovereignty of Ukraine and its territorial integrity, including its rights of navigation in its territorial waters". Russia should "ensure unhindered access to the Ukrainian ports of the Azov Sea".

The Ukrainian authorities said that they had informed the Russians in advance that the ships would pass through the strait, which connects the Black Sea to the sea of ​​Azov.

Russia said the three Ukrainian vessels had made an unauthorized crossing in Russian territorial waters, while Ukraine claimed that one of its boats had been beaten by a Russian coastguard ship .

The tug, which was struck, was traveling with the two Ukrainian gunboats from Odessa on the Black Sea to Mariupol, a port of eastern Ukraine, through the Kerch Strait.

"Russian Coast Guard vessels … have been carrying out overtly aggressive actions against Ukrainian navy ships," the Ukrainian statement said. The tug was damaged by its engine, hull, railings and lifeboat.

The Kerch Strait is the only passage in the sea of ​​Azov. The strait is crossed by the Kerch Bridge recently completedconnecting Crimea with Russia. The transit under the bridge was blocked by a tanker and dozens of cargo ships waiting to cross are blocked.

Russia has given no indication of the time it will block in the Strait, but a long-term closure would amount to an economic blockade of Ukrainian towns located on the Azov coast. The Russian Black Sea Fleet far surpasses the Ukrainian navy.

The Ukrainian ports on the sea of ​​Azov include strategic centers, such as Mariupol, the nearest city controlled by the government, with the exception of Donetsk and Luhansk, the separatist regions of the east of Ukraine controlled by separatists backed by Russia. Thousands of people in these areas have been killed in fighting between Ukrainian troops and separatists since 2014.

After the first incident, the FSB informed Russian news agencies that Ukrainian vessels had maintained their course and violated Russian territorial waters.

"Their goal is clear: to create a situation of conflict in the region," says the FSB statement. It was not mentioned that a Ukrainian tug had been rammed.

Although a 2003 treaty designated the Kerch Strait and the Azov Sea as shared territorial waters, Russia claims increased control over this crossing since 2015.

The Ukrainian Foreign Ministry said earlier that Russia's actions violated the United Nations Charter and international law, and pledged to "promptly inform our partners of Russia's aggressive actions".

"Such acts pose a threat to the security of all states in the Black Sea region," the statement said, "and therefore require a clear response from the international community."

Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko, after a meeting with his national security council, said in a statement that he would ask parliament Monday to look into the question of whether to apply the martial law on the incident.

About 50-100 people gathered in front of the Russian Embassy in Kiev to protest Moscow's actions.

Dmitry Kiselyov, a commentator of Russian state-controlled television, told viewers of his Sunday night news show that Poroshenko, encouraged by the United States, was seeking to fight against Russia in the Black Sea .

The show's host also alleged that the US had persuaded Poroshenko to stage a provocation against Russia as a way to disrupt a future meeting between Presidents Vladimir Putin and Donald Trump at the Group of 20 summit. to be held this week in Argentina.

"What's happening now on the (Kerch) bridge is threatening to turn into a very unpleasant story," Kiselyov said.

Under Putin, while Russia used force previously, his line of defense has always been: "We did not start it," according to Steven Rosenberg's analysis of BBC News in Moscow. He writes: This goes for the Russian-Georgian war of 2008 and for the appearance of "Little Green Men" (Russian special forces) in Crimea in 2014, which preceded the annexation of the peninsula by Moscow.

Rosenberg was waiting for Moscow to attribute responsibility for what happened on Sunday and what will happen next to Poroshenko's government.