Azov ports under blockade: what Ukraine's coast faced in late 2018
A look back at reports from the days before 4 December 2018, when Ukraine's Azov Sea ports were described as cut off.
What was happening on Ukraine's Azov coast by 4 December 2018? Reports from the days just before that date described a port region effectively sealed off.
On 29 November 2018, Ukraine's Infrastructure Minister Volodymyr Omelyan said the ports of Berdiansk and Mariupol were effectively under blockade. According to him, Russia was refusing to let any Ukrainian vessels leave or enter the Sea of Azov.
The same day, President Petro Poroshenko called on NATO to send warships to patrol the Sea of Azov.
Elsewhere, the Belgian Air Component reported on Twitter on 29 November that Belgian F-16s, operating in the Baltic region for NATO's Baltic Air Policing mission, had intercepted Russian Flanker jets the previous day. The reported reason was that the aircraft had no flight plan.
Together, the reports show how the dispute over access to the Sea of Azov was being framed in the run-up to 4 December 2018: as a blockade of two Ukrainian ports, and as a matter on which Kyiv was appealing to the alliance.
