Kerch Strait

Russia said its forces destroyed three Ukrainian naval drones being used in an attempt to attack a key bridge linking Russia to Crimea.

Traffic on the key bridge connecting Crimea to Russia´s mainland was halted on Monday after reports of explosions.

Russian-installed authorities in Crimea reported shooting down a cruise missile and suspending traffic on the Kerch bridge.

Russia sees “uptick in rail accidents” and country will struggle to protect the tracks it relies on to move military supplies, says UK.

Russia arrested eight people over Crimea bridge bombing and accused the Ukrainian Defence Ministry of organising the attack.

The Kerch Strait Bridge, also known as the Crimea Bridge, became the focus of international attention when it was struck by a huge explosion on Saturday.

The mayor of western Lviv, Ukraine, confirmed in a social media post on Tuesday that Russia had begun a missile assault, resulting in blackouts throughout the city of over half a million people.

Ukrainian state security forces detained a Russian oil tanker in the port of Izmail on Wednesday, seizing documents and questioning the crew before releasing them. Ukraine said the action was taken due to the Russian ship’s involvement in the November 2018 Kerch Strait confrontation, which ended with Russia seizing a Ukrainian ship and imprisoning its 24 crew members.

The United Nations International Maritime Court on Saturday ruled Russia must immediately release 24 Ukrainian sailors taken prisoner in November and return three seized naval vessels to Ukraine.

Ukraine’s Border Guard Service on Monday accused Russia of effectively blockading the Kerch Strait by subjecting vessels bound for Ukrainian ports to an extremely slow approval process that allows only a few ships to pass per day.

Contents: Russia ‘partially unblocks’ Ukraine’s ports; Turkey and Ukraine may establish strategic military partnership against Russia

The Border Guard Service of Ukraine announced a ban on Friday on male Russian nationals between the ages of 16 and 60 entering the country for the duration of martial law, currently scheduled to last 30 days.

Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko gave an interview to Germany’s Bild newspaper on Thursday in which he urged NATO to deploy warships in the Sea of Azov to forestall a possible Russian invasion of his country.

The Kremlin on Thursday claimed a meeting between Presidents Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin would proceed as planned on Saturday at the G-20 summit in Buenos Aires, Argentina, but a few hours later President Trump canceled the meeting.

The leaders of Russia and Ukraine fought an escalating war of words on Wednesday, with Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko warning the tense situation could escalate into a war of tanks and bombs.

China’s state-run Global Times on Monday weighed in on the increasingly serious conflict between Russia and Ukraine, advising the Ukrainians their best interests lie in playing along with their huge, belligerent neighbor instead of counting on the Western world for rescue.

Ukrainian Foreign Minister Pavlo Klimkin on Tuesday accused Russia of planning to “dismember” his country, beginning with the conquest of vital port cities along the Sea of Azov. Klimkin implied Russia’s seizure of three Ukrainian ships this weekend was a sign the Russians are preparing to implement their dismemberment strategy.

Russia on Monday refused to return three Ukrainian ships seized in the Black Sea on Sunday during a confrontation in which Ukraine said the Russians fired upon its vessels and injured six sailors.

The naval conflict this weekend between Russia and Ukraine was not a sudden development. Pressure has been building between the two nations for a long time, arguably even before Ukraine broke away from the disintegrating Soviet Union in 1991.

Russia alarmed the world on Sunday by reportedly seizing Ukrainian vessels in the Sea of Azov, attacking Ukrainian assets and blocking some of its most important port cities through its illegal command of the Crimean peninsula.

Contents: Russia attacks Ukraine’s navy and blockades Ukraine’s ports at Kerch Strait; Russia confirms the attack on the Ukrainian ships