https://southfront.org/russia-ukraine-black-sea-military-crisis/
On November 25, the Russian Federal Security Service (FSB) Border Service was forced to open fire on and damage Ukrainian warships, which were carrying out hostile actions and advancing in Russian territorial waters in the Black Sea off Crimea.
After the short close-quarter firefight, two Ukrainian ships were taken towed and one ship escorted by Russian forces to the Russian port of Kerch. The Ukrainian side said that 6 service members had been injured in the incident. The Russian side says that 3 Ukrainian servicemen had been slightly injured. They received medical help and there is no threat to their lives.
The data available from both sides, Ukrainian and Russian, demonstrates that the Ukrainian warships intentionally entered Russian territorial waters and were moving more deeply into them. Such a military action with the to be expected loud political coverage is not possible without a direct order from the Ukrainian top military-political leadership.
From the beginning, the Ukrainian side claimed that it informed the Russian side about the planned displacement of its ships into the Sea of Azov through the Kerch Strait. The Russian side says that there has been no request on this issue.
Even if the Ukrainian side had indeed somehow informed the Russians, it still needed to wait for an answer and permission from the Russian authorities. As the further developments showed, the Ukrainian side had received no answer/permission from the Russian side.
The existence or absence of the Ukrainian request to the Russians is irrelevant. The fact is that the Ukrainian warships violated Russian territorial waters threatening navigation in the area and provoking the Russian side.
For more than 5 hours, the Russian side had been avoiding any action to stop and block warships of the de-facto “unfriendly state” in its territorial waters. Only at about 19:00 local time, the FSB Border Service did employ real measures to put an end to the hostile actions of the warships of the de-facto “unfriendly state” in Russian territorial waters.
Summing up the existing data, it can be concluded that:
- When the Ukrainian warships entered Russian territorial waters, there was an attempt to block the advance of the Ukrainian naval group. One of the ships of the FSB Border Service provoked a maritime collision incident with a Ukrainian ship by putting its own hull on the vector of the Ukrainian warship’s advance.
- Within the next few hours, there was a close escort of the Ukrainian ships by the Russian naval group. Apparently, both the groups were inside or near Russian marginal waters.
- In a couple of hours, there was a firefight incident between the Russian and Ukrainian naval groups.
- The Ukrainian Navy recognizes that the incident happened near the borderline of the Russian 12-nautical miles zone.
- The Ukrainian naval group was completely dominated by the Russian naval group.
- There were casualties among Ukrainian service members.
- Warships of the Ukrainian naval group suffered damages.
- The Ukrainian naval group was blocked and then escorted/towed by the Russian naval group to Kerch.
There is no doubt that the leadership of the Ukrainian Armed Forces, particularly Commander-In-Chief Petro Poroshenko, gave the order to stage an action, which could cause casualties among at least military personnel. The command and servicemen of the Ukrainian Navy made every possible effort to fulfil this order.
The Russian side seemed to try to avoid an armed clash and likely attempted to solve this crisis via military-diplomatic channels for at least several hours. However, it failed to do this.
The existing data allows us to conclude that the current Ukrainian political leadership bears most of the responsibility for the November 25 maritime incident.
As to what developments we should expect in the following days, we can expect that.
The Ukrainian government will employ its propaganda and oppressive power to boost the image of Russia as the aggressive foe of Ukraine. This will lead to the escalation of tensions in the conflict zone in eastern Ukraine as well as tensions in the contact zone between Russian and Ukrainian forces in the Black Sea and the Sea of Azov.
If this fails, this incident could lead to a full discreditation of the current Ukrainian political leadership, particularly President Poroshenko, and his US supervisors.
It is important to note that overnight on November 26 the situation started escalating in eastern Ukraine where the Ukrainian Armed Forces opened a massive artillery fire on villages and towns controlled by the Donetsk People’s Republic (DPR) at 21:48 local time. This could indicate that the Poroshenko regime is intentionally fueling military tensions in the region in order to start a new conflict.
Overnight on November 26, Poroshenko held a meeting with the military cabinet and announced the introduction of martial law. Furthermore, the Ukrainian Armed Forces were brought to “full” combat readiness.
The introduction of martial law allows the delay of the 2019 presidential election in Ukraine, which is currently set to be held on March 31, 2019. According to polls, Poroshenko would be highly likely to lose his presidential post were the election to take place now. The armed conflict and martial law may allow him to change the situation in his favor.
Such a conflict would also allow Ukraine’s “Western partners” to boost their military presence in the country and nearby regions thus further destabilizing the situation.
The EU and Pindo governments and presstitutes should be hanged from that magnificent bridge. That ought to have a most welcome, cooling effect upon the Ukronazis — their Navy and pirates in particular.
This is how the Canadian Ukrainian Congress is portraying the event to its members, and what it hopes to achieve in the short term by this Ukrainian military provocation:
“The international community must respond forcefully to this disgraceful act of aggression by Russia. The Ukrainian Canadian Congress (UCC) calls on Canada, the US, the EU and all civilized nations to immediately take decisive measures to counter Russian aggression and:
Demand that Russia immediately release all Ukrainian sailors illegally captured as well as all Ukrainian prisoners of war and over 70 Ukrainian political prisoners illegally jailed in Russian custody;
Significantly strengthen sanctions against Russia for this latest brazen act of aggression against Ukraine’s sovereignty, including banning Russia from the SWIFT international payments system;
Provide Ukraine with naval ships, missiles and other materiel as may be needed to defend itself against Russia’s naval aggression;
Immediately rescind Russia’s invitation to the G-20 Summit, to be held in Argentina November 30-December 1.
As this ongoing anti-Russian media swill goes round and round and spirals down the MSM toilet bowl they just become more and more hollow and desperate sounding.
We’ve surely entered the late-farce stage in all this (not so) great ‘game’ play. The Russian (& Chinese, to some extent) tolerance for these provocations is far beyond professional.
Under that slithering Obama character, or his shrill want-a-be Clinton POTUS, all this would be probably much the same and even a degree darker and ‘democrat’ sinister. However, somehow Trump makes it seem more like the ‘Jester as King’ playing the Court: fool; fumble; and facade; … or deadly distracted design? I personally think they are just playing a 3rd-rate Batman script — and the sad part is, this indicates the general assessment of the mental maturity of the intended mass audience (in the US mostly I assume).
So it seems as if a Brexit-disaster distraction strategy the once (long ago) now-not-so-great Little Briton foments some Crimean tug-boat drama in the Azov bathtub to try and disrupt the next G20 wingding in Argentina.
Perhaps we will now see some focus on the Falklands to decide whether they are the Islas Malvinas again?
Maybe Mr Putin can drop a few Russian Christmas hampers on the poor devils as he flies over on his way to Buenos Aires? A few Poroshenko chocolate boxes? I doubt the UK could afford a floating asset to help sheep — it’s a long time since 1982 and militant Maggy; and things are much worse and austere in May’s Brave New World.
I believe the Ukrainian Canadian Congress is better known as the Canadian Nazi Party. Like the Canadian foreign minister it has its roots in the Nazi collaborators associated with Stefan Bandera who were welcomed to Canada after retreating from Ukraine with the Nazi armies at the end of WW II. The Canadian government thought, correctly, they would make useful strikebreakers and fifth columnists in the postwar labour struggles. They were also useful in promoting anti-Russian Ukrainian nationalism during the Soviet period which culminated in the Nazi coup in post-Sovie Ukrainian in 2014. Since the coup they have worked with great success to funnel Canadian money, troops, police, and arms to bolster the fascist forces in Ukraine.
Is it usual to introduce martial law at home before declaring war on another country? It seems strange to divide the military to patrol the homebase at the same time as launching an attack on an external foe.
Saker covered this in his recent analysis. In case there are people, like me, who are late to recent events here is a one-sentence explanation:
“….martial law could be used to covertly increase the number of soldiers available for an attack on Novorussia or, God forbid, Russia herself. “
https://southfront.org/detained-ukrainian-servicemen-confirm-they-provoked-black-sea-incident-with-russia-upon-order-from-their-command/
Interviews
It took 5 hours before Russia took decisive action against hostile moves by the Ukraine Navy. Putin gave the order when it became clear that Ukraine was provoking conflict. We call that tact. The Russians were being nice. Poroshenko was endangering his forces and the defenders by violation of the law of the sea. There is no need to coddle the fascists who now run Ukraine and run rough shod over the Donbass Region.
Russia does not want war with Ukraine and does not want to kill Ukrainians.
But the main problems are those crooks in Kiev.
Poroshenko, Turchinov and other scum receive orders to provoke Russia and to start a war.
Russia should start doing something to remove those idiots form political stage. Russia probably still have some influence in Ukraine.
“Such a military action with the to be expected loud political coverage is not possible without a direct order from the Ukrainian top military-political leadership”.
And that, in turn, is not possible without orders from Washington.
This link may seem a little OT, but if it even considered half seriously then something is seriously amiss. There appears to be fear, uncertainty and doubt (FUD) in truckloads — and they are doing it to themselves in some form of mass auto-stimulation. How can such an economy be free, market and real? Perhaps only loss of reserve global currency could entail such a threat?
“The Commission on National Defense Strategy for the U.S. has just released to Congress its report “Providing for the Common Defense”, [*] and it opens: “In the National Defense Authorization Act of 2017, Congress charged this Commission with providing an independent, nonpartisan review of the 2018 National Defense Strategy and issues of U.S. defense strategy and policy more broadly.” The report’s co-chairs, Eric S. Edelman and Gary Roughead, say in their accompanying letter to Congress, that “the United States will soon face a national security emergency.” It doesn’t describe that “emergency,” but uses it to argue that ‘defense’ spending needs to soar and all other spending by the Government — especially for Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, and other “entitlements” — needs to shrink, and/or recipient beneficiaries of those programs need to pay more, and taxes need to increase, so that this “emergency” can be dealt with. They say that the weapons-manufacturers and soldiers need more money, and that this military requirement is an “emergency” but other federal spending is not.”
https://washingtonsblog.com/2018/11/congressionally-mandated-new-report-urges-massive-u-s-military-increases.html
[*] – https://www.usip.org/sites/default/files/2018-11/providing-for-the-common-defense.pdf
Thanks for the link.
A magnificent specimen of double-speak coming from an organisation that calls itself the ‘United States Institute of Peace.’ Russia and China are ‘authoritarian’ regimes bent on hegemony while the US is only interested in peace, prosperity and the pursuit of happiness. In order to establish peace and happiness around the world, the US must spend more on arms. Orwell couldn’t do better than these two authors.
BTW, these peaceful warriors have just introduced a new phrase AFAIK — ‘gray area conflict’. Expect that phrase to be bandied about by all and sundry soon.
Basil