Ukraine to convene UN Security Council session due to Russian attack on Navy boats
Ukraine has requested an emergency session of the UN Security Council in connection with Russian border guards attacking a group of ships belonging to the Ukrainian Navy. This was reported by Volodymyr Yelchenko, Ukraine’s Permanent Representative to the UN.
“At the president’s instruction, we are immediately appealing to the UN Security Council. The aggressor’s provocative behavior can only be stopped through joint coordinated efforts,” Yelchenko wrote on Twitter on the evening of Sunday, November 25.
On Sunday, Russian border guards attacked and seized two boats and a tugboat belonging to the Ukrainian Navy. All three vessels lost way due to the Russian attack, and two Ukrainian sailors were wounded.
Before this, a Russian ship rammed the tugboat Yany Kapu which was escorting the armored boats Berdyansk and “Nikopol” from Odessa to Mariupol. The ramming caused damage to the engine, the hand rail, and the loss of a life raft.
The Russians were blocking the Kerch Strait using a tanker with the automatic identification system deactivated.
The Ukrainian Naval Command emphasizes that they had announced the transfer of the boats in advance, in keeping with the rules of international law to ensure safe navigation. Russia’s FSB claims that it did not receive notifications of any kind, and describes its aggression as supposedly “protecting the state border”.
When the Ukrainian ship group began to withdraw from the strait, Russian ships and boats began to follow it, threatening to use weapons. The Ukrainian Naval Command reports that the Russians threatened to board the Ukrainian ships with special forces.