Contents tagged with Kerch Strait

  • Crimean residents collect money for detained Ukrainian sailors

    Approximately 140 thousand rubles ($2,110 USD) were collected in the Crimea in support of the Ukrainian military sailors who were captured by the Russian FSB in the Kerch Strait, said Nariman Jelyal, an activist of the Crimean Tatar National Movement, on air with Radio Krym Realii.

    He noted that after the reports appeard about the detention of Ukrainian sailors and the fact that they were “not allowed to collect their personal belongings from the ships”, many people started speaking about the …

  • Erdogan speaks with Putin after the conversation with Ukrainian President Poroshenko

    President of Turkey Recep Tayyip Erdoğan held a telephone conversation with Russian President Vladimir Putin during which the parties discussed the situation in the Black Sea region, stated the Kremlin’s website. Turkey initiated the talks.

    The Kremlin stated that Erdogan and Putin exchanged their views regarding the incident in the Kerch Strait where Russia captured three Ukrainian ships and twenty-four sailors. "In the context of the dangerous incident in the region of the Kerch Strait …

  • US Representative for Ukraine Volker: Russia wants to control access to Mariupol

    The developments in the Sea of Azov this past weekend show that Russia intends to take sole control over access to Ukrainian ports, said Kurt Volker, the US State Department’s Special Representative for Ukraine, as reported by Ukrinform.

    “I think that this is a matter of access to Mariupol for Ukrainians. Russia is claiming the unilateral right to control this access, that’s the problem. This definitely doesn’t mean that Russia is going to undertake a new offensive on land,” the American …

  • President Poroshenko: attack on the Ukrainian ships was deliberately planned by Russia

    In an interview with three Ukrainian TV channels, Ukrainian president Petro Poroshenko said that Russia was purposefully preparing for an attack on Ukrainian ships.

    “They knew. They were preparing. These were deliberate actions with the use of aviation and tools for electronic radio combat, with an underwater assault by special forces,” noted Poroshenko.

    He added that Russia deployed a large number of warships to the Azov and the Black Sea. These warships   are most densely concentrated in …

  • Kyiv: Four captured Ukrainian sailors are injured, one in serious condition

    Iryna Herashchenko, the First Deputy Chairperson of the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine, the Presidential envoy on a peaceful settlement of the Donbas conflict, reported on Facebook that four Ukrainian sailors captured by Russia have been injured and that one of them is in serious condition.

    Herashchenko stressed that during the special meeting with the participation of the Ukrainian Human Rights Commissioned, Lyudmila Denisova, representatives of the Navy, the Ukrainian Ministry of Temporarily …

  • Ukrainian President warns of threat of full-scale war with Russia

    In an interview with three TV channels, Ukrainian President Poroshenko said that Ukraine is under the threat of a full-scale war with Russia. Therefore, the National Security and Defense Council of Ukraine (NSDC) decided to impose martial law in border areas for a month. The President said he could substantiate his words with intelligence data, the presidential press service reported.

    Poroshenko demonstrated satellite images, which, he said, depicted a Russian military base located near the …

  • President Poroshenko tried to talk with Putin after Ukrainian ships were seized by Russia

    President Petro Poroshenko stated that after the Russian border guards captured Ukrainian ships in the Kerch Strait, he tried to hold a telephone conversation with Russian President Vladimir Putin. However, there was no response from the Russian side.

    “I requested a conversation with the Russian President Putin at night, but we did not receive an answer,” Poroshenko said in an interview with Ukrainian television channels on Tuesday evening.

    The Ukrainian President also said that because of …

  • EU prepares new sanctions on Russia after Kerch Strait incident

    The EU is considering imposing additional sanctions on Russia due to a recent incident in the Black Sea in which Russian border guards fired on and seized three Ukrainian military boats, injuring three sailors, as announced on Tuesday by Austrian Foreign Minister Karin Kneissl, following talks with her German colleague Heiko Maas.

    “We’ll see about the issue of further sanctions. Everything depends on this examination of the facts,” said Kneissl, as cited by Bloomberg.

    Kneissl noted that the …

  • Klimkin: Ukraine has no diplomatic ties with Russia

    Ukraine does not sever diplomatic ties with Russia because they are "formal", stated Ukrainian Foreign Minister Pavlo Klimkin.

    “In fact, there are no diplomatic ties with Russia. This is just a formality since our diplomats in Russia are actually not able to carry out any diplomatic activity in the aggressor country. They are solely focused on helping Ukrainians, including political prisoners. We have always proceeded from this position,” he said.

    According to the minister, Ukrainians who are …

  • Kyiv: Russia has 500 military planes on Ukrainian border

    Russia has amassed roughly 500 tactical military planes and 340 helicopters along its border with Ukraine, Ukrinform reports, citing Vadym Skibitsky, spokesperson for the Main Intelligence Directorate of the Ukrainian Defense Ministry. He presented this data at a briefing titled “A military and strategic appraisal of the threat of the Russian Armed Forces invading Ukraine”.

    According to Skibitsky, since 2013, Russia has been upgrading its airfield network along the border with Ukraine, and has …