Brussels reporter for Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty Rikard Jozwiak has said the EU declaration on Azov Sea was set to be released later on Wednesday, Nov 28, and that the draft had no concrete calls for sanctions against Russia.
"The EU28 declaration on AzovSea and KerchStrait should come out today. No concrete calls for sanctions and apparently no words of condemnation," Jozwiak wrote on Twitter on November 28, 2018.
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As UNIAN reported earlier, Russian coast guard ships opened fire on a group of vessels of the Ukrainian Navy – two small-sized 'Berdiansk' and 'Nikopol' armored artillery boats and the 'Yany Kapu' tugboat – as they were leaving the Kerch Strait on Sunday evening. Prior to that, on Sunday morning, the 'Yany Kapu' (Yani Qapi) tugboat of Ukraine's Navy was rammed by a Russian coast guard ship while the Ukrainian vessels were carrying out a planned transfer from the port of Odesa to the port of Mariupol in the Sea of Azov.
The Ukrainian side said notification about the transfer plans had been done in advance in accordance with international rules to ensure safe navigation.
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Russia, in turn, claims that the Ukrainian vessels "illegally" entered the temporarily closed water area of the territorial sea of the Russian Federation. The FSB alleges that the Ukrainian side did not file an application for passage and its boats were not included in the timetable for navigation through the Kerch Strait.
The Ukrainian Navy's command insists that under Articles 17 and 38 of the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea and Article 2 of the Treaty between Ukraine and the Russian Federation on cooperation in the use of the Sea of Azov and the Kerch Strait, Ukrainian warships enjoy freedom of navigation, and therefore can pass through the Kerch Strait at any time, subject only to navigation safety regulations.
Later, it became known that a Russian special ops unit had seized all the three Ukrainian boats when they were leaving the Kerch Strait. Six members of Ukraine's Navy were reportedly wounded, two of them were in serious condition.
