Trump cancels Putin meeting as Azov ports face blockade
A look back at the day the Kerch Strait clash reached the G20 and Ukraine asked NATO for warships.
What did the clash in the Kerch Strait cost Russia diplomatically by the end of 29 November 2018? On that date it cost Moscow a planned meeting between U.S. President Donald Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin at the G20 summit in Buenos Aires.
The confrontation dated from 25 November 2018, when the Russian Federal Security Service coast guard fired upon and captured three Ukrainian Navy vessels. They had tried to pass from the Black Sea into the Sea of Azov on their way to the port of Mariupol. It was the first time Russian forces had openly engaged Ukrainian forces in the Russo-Ukrainian War.
A meeting called off in mid-flight
On 27 November, Trump had said he might cancel the meeting with Putin because of the maritime clash. On 29 November, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said the meeting was still on. Less than an hour before the cancellation, Trump had said he would probably meet Putin and that it was a good time to do so.
While flying to Argentina, Trump then announced on Twitter that he had decided to cancel the meeting after conferring with his top national security advisers. He said it was not a good time, because Russia had not returned the ships and sailors to Ukraine.
Ports under pressure
The same day, 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. President Petro Poroshenko called on NATO to send warships to patrol the Sea of Azov.
Air activity in the Baltic
Elsewhere, the Belgian Air Component reported on Twitter that on the previous day Belgian F-16s flying in the Baltic region on NATO's Baltic Air Policing mission had intercepted Russian Flanker jets, allegedly because they had no flight plan.
Taken together, the reports of 29 November 2018 showed the Azov dispute spreading from the strait itself into summit diplomacy, Ukrainian commercial ports and calls for a NATO presence.
