The day martial law began in ten Ukrainian oblasts
A retrospective on 28 November 2018, when a 30-day martial law regime took effect after the Kerch Strait clash.
What did it mean for a country to wake up under martial law? On 28 November 2018, Ukraine's regime of martial law took effect in 10 oblasts, for a period of 30 days. The Verkhovna Rada had approved it on 26 November 2018, in the wake of the Kerch Strait incident.
The incident behind the vote
The clash had taken place on 25 November 2018. Russian Federal Security Service coast guard vessels fired upon and captured three Ukrainian Navy vessels that were trying to pass from the Black Sea into the Sea of Azov on their way to the port of Mariupol. It was the first time that Russian forces had openly engaged Ukrainian forces during the Russo-Ukrainian War.
The Rada's decision, as reported at the time, followed what was described as aggression by Russian border ships in the Kerch Strait against vessels of the Ukrainian Navy. Martial law was approved for 10 oblasts, starting on 28 November 2018.
Diplomacy in the same days
The political reaction was not confined to Kyiv. On 26 November 2018, Russia asked for an urgent meeting of the United Nations Security Council. The same day, the Kerch Strait was reopened to commercial shipping.
On 27 November 2018, the U.S. President, Donald Trump, said he might cancel his planned meeting with the Russian President, Vladimir Putin, at the G20 summit in Buenos Aires that week, citing Russia's maritime clash with Ukraine.
Other items on the calendar
Not every item that day concerned the confrontation. On 28 November 2018, a Cabinet of Ministers decree returned the buildings of the Pochaiv Lavra to the Kremenets-Pochaiv Reserve. Two days earlier, on 26 November 2018, an international tribunal in Paris had ruled that Russia must pay Oschadbank 1.3 billion dollars.
Taken together, these items show a country in the same few days dealing with a security emergency, an international legal ruling, a diplomatic row and a decision on one of its best-known religious sites. The first of these defined 28 November 2018: the start of a 30-day exceptional regime in ten oblasts, adopted by parliament within days of the incident in the strait.
