Russian coastguards attacked and seized two Ukrainian patrol boats and a military tug heading from Odesa to the port of Mariupol on the Azov Sea coast on Nov. 25. The incident happened in the Black Sea when the Ukrainian vessels tried to enter the Kerch Strait. Russia illegally took full control of the straits in May, when it opened a bridge from Russia to Ukraine’s Russian-occupied Crimea.
On May 15, Russian President Vladimir Putin opened the illegally constructed bridge connecting Russia’s Taman Peninsula with Crimea, which the Kremlin invaded and started to occupy in late February 2014.
In doing so, Russia violated not only international law, but also a 2003 agreement with Ukraine on the Common Use of the Azov Sea and Kerch Strait, which defined the Kerch Strait and the Azov Sea as the common territorial waters of Russia and Ukraine.
It also set in motion a train of events that ultimately led to the incident in the Kerch Strait on Nov. 25.
Soon after the automobile section of the bridge was opened, Russia started stopping Ukrainian and international cargo vessels on their way to and from the Ukrainian ports in the Azov Sea – allegedly for checks, and saying it was searching for possible saboteurs planning to blow up the Crimean Bridge. The checks caused hours of delays, that in turn cost Ukrainian shippers millions in lost profits.
Russia also deployed seven military vessels from its Caspian Fleet to the Azov Sea in June.
Although media and experts rang the alarm about the cargo vessels stops early in summer, for a long time the Ukrainian authorities paid little attention to Russia’s growing military presence in the Azov.
But over seven months the situation escalated to the next stage of Russia’s war against Ukraine, and could now lead to martial law being declared in the country. However Ukrainian and Russian authorities laid the grounds for the present tensions long before the annexation of Crimea and the start of Russia’s war against Ukraine in the Donbas.
Here is a timeline with the history of the Ukrainian-Russian conflict in the region:
September 2003: The Tuzla conflict
In 2003, Russia made an attempt to seize Ukraine’s Tuzla Island, located in the middle of Kerch Strait, a water channel that divides Russia and Crimea.
The Russians constructed a causeway to Tuzla, which back then had a Ukrainian border checkpoint, without Ukraine’s permission. Tuzla, along with Crimea, was included in the territory of the Ukrainian Soviet Republic in 1954.
After the collapse of the Soviet Union, when Russia and Ukraine were dividing the inheritance of the Soviet Union, the island went to Ukraine.
The Tuzla conflict was frozen after Ukraine’s second president, Leonid Kuchma, and Russian President Vladimir Putin signed an agreement between Ukraine and Russia on cooperation and the shared use of the Azov Sea and the Kerch Strait.
December 2003: The Azov Agreement
The agreement was signed in December 2003, ratified in April 2004, and is still in force.
“Ukraine and the Russian Federation, two historically brotherly nations, define the Azov Sea and Kerch Strait as economically important to both countries,” the agreement reads.
The Azov Sea agreement also defines the sea as the common territorial waters of Ukraine and Russia and reads that Ukrainian and Russian military and commercial vessels are free to sail wherever they want. But the vessels of third countries are allowed to enter the Kerch Strait only after both Russia and Ukraine give their permission.
Also, the agreement reads that Russia and Ukraine must decide where to draw their sea borders – something they were supposed to do back in 1997, but Russia blocked any agreement on that.
February – March 2014: Russia annexes Crimea
After the success of the EuroMaidan Revolution, which started in November 2013 and ousted pro-Kremlin President of Ukraine Viktor Yanukovych on Feb. 22, 2014, became clear to Putin, Russia went into action.
The Kremlin started a covert invasion of the peninsula, some 20 years after the failure of its previous attempt to squeeze Ukraine out of Crimea in 1994.
Russia used the military bases of its Black Sea Fleet, which the Ukrainian government had allowed it to retain in the Crimean port city of Sevastopol, to blockade Ukrainian military bases on the peninsula.
At first, Putin did not admit that the soldiers in green unmarked military uniforms were Russian soldiers, instead lying that they were Crimean self-defense fighters. The world dubbed them little green men.
The little green men were not only used to blockade Ukrainian military bases in Crimea, but also secured the sham referendum the Kremlin staged in Crimea, with Ukrainians living in Crimea voting under the guns of the invading Russian troops. Later, Putin admitted that the little green men had indeed been Russian servicemen.
In March 2014, the United Nations General Assembly adopted a resolution condemning Russia for violating the territorial integrity of Ukraine. More than 100 countries supported the resolution, while 58 abstained and 11 UN voted against it. Later in 2014, the West imposed sanctions on Russia to punish it for the occupation of the peninsula. They are supposed to remain in effect until the Kremlin withdraws from Ukrainian territory.
The sanctions restrain any kind of business relations with Crimea. But Russia defiantly states that it has restored historic justice by regaining control of Crimea, and has started claiming that Crimea and the waters around it are its own territory.
Since then, more than 27,000 Crimean citizens have fled to mainland Ukraine. Ukraine also cut water supplies to the peninsula, and electricity supplies have also been disrupted.
February 2016: Russia starts Crimean Bridge construction
While the West was calling for Russia to withdraw from Crimea, Putin moved to consolidate Kremlin control over the occupied Ukrainian territory.
In February 2016, the Russians started the construction of a 19-kilometer, $3 billion bridge connecting Russia and Crimea. In 2017 it started erecting arched sections of the bridge, closing the Kerch Strait to commercial vessels for days. The closures caused a 14 percent drop in cargo transshipment in the Ukrainian ports of Mariupol and Berdyansk.
Ukraine never gave permission for the Crimean Bridge to be built, and has filed a claim at the International Commercial Sea Arbitrage Court, which will consider the case in 2019.
May 2018: Russia opens the bridge, stops vessels
Although the Russians were planning to finish the Crimean Bridge construction in 2019, Putin decided to pompously open the automobile section of the bridge in May 2018, while the construction of the railroad section is still ongoing.
The same month, Russia started stopping Ukrainian and international cargo vessels for checks, saying these were security measures. Russia’s Federal Security Service or FSB said it was searching for Ukrainian saboteurs, whom it said planned to blow up the bridge.
From May until October, Russia stopped more than 150 vessels going to and from Ukrainian ports, detaining them for checks, for from three hours to six days, Andriy Klymenko, the chief editor of the Black Sea News and an expert of the Maidan of Foreign Affairs NGO, said on his Facebook page. The West condemned Russia’s actions in the Azov Sea.
March, May 2018: Fishing crew arrests
In May, Russia arrested the Ukrainian fishing boat YAMK 0041 and its crew of five sailors for poaching in the Azov Sea. The Ukrainian fishermen are still being detained in Crimea. Many saw it as a move in revenge for Ukraine’s border guards in March arresting the fishing boat Nord and its crew: Russia was infuriated by the arrest of the Nord, which is registered in Crimea.
The Nord was arrested in the Azov Sea for illegally sailing under the Russian flag. Its crew had Russian passports, given to them by the Russian occupation authorities.
Ukraine and Russia still cannot decide on terms for the exchange of the fishing crews.
That incident has affected the fishing business in the region, with Azov Sea fishermen now fearing they could be abducted by the Russians while fishing in the Azov Sea.
September 2018: Ukraine boosts military presence in the Azov
After more than three months of Russia blocking cargo vessels and increasing its military presence in the Azov Sea, Ukraine, which had had no naval presence in the sea, started strengthening its naval forces there in September.
On Sept. 11 the Ukrainian military delivered two armored patrol boats, the Lubny and the Kremenchug, to the port of Berdyansk overland by rail.
The Ukrainian navy then conducted the military drills on the coast of the Azov Sea and redeployed the military rescue ship Donbas and the tug Korets from Odesa port to Mariupol.
On Sept. 23, the ships successfully passed under the Crimean Bridge, shadowed by a small flotilla of Russian warships and buzzed by low-flying Russian aircraft. After they entered the Azov Sea, they were met by the Ukrainian patrol boats Lubny and Kremenchug, which escorted them to Mariupol Port on Sept. 24. The Russians made no attempt to stop them.
November 2018: Russians attack
The Coast Guard of the Russian Federal Security Service attacked and seized three Ukrainian naval vessels on Nov. 25 after the Ukrainian warships tried to go from the Black Sea into the Azov Sea through the Russian-controlled Kerch Strait.
Six Ukrainian sailors were wounded in a firefight during to seizure of the vessels. The three Ukrainian vessels were taken to the port of Kerch in annexed Crimea. Ukraine’s military said 23 of the country’s sailors had been captured.
The Russian authorities say all of the sailors and arrested vessels remain in Kerch.
