Russia deliberately blocking Kerch Strait – Ukrainian Navy

"At about 13.50 Kyiv time, the Kerch Strait was freely crossed by the Admiral Zakharov minesweeper of the Russian Black Sea Fleet and two Raptor-type boats of the FSB border service. This passage was not interrupted by a tanker with the switched off automated identification system, which Russia uses to block the Kerch Strait. This is another testimony to the hypocritical and false policy of Russia, because a peaceful passage for a naval group of the Ukrainian Navy is being blocked at any cost," the command said.

Earlier, Ukrainian Navy Commander Ihor Voronchenko denied statements by Russia that a ship allegedly stranded in the Kerch Strait. He drew parallels with the situation in 2014 in the Donuzlav Bay in Crimea, when Russians sank their own ships to prevent the passage of the Ukrainian fleet.

According to him, there are currently eight Russian ships staying in the Kerch Bridge - two vessels of the Black Sea Fleet and six boats of the FSB border service.

Earlier, the command of the Ukrainian Navy said that on November 25, Russian border ships carried out openly aggressive actions against two Ukrainian small armored artillery boats Berdiansk and Nikopol and the Yana Kapu tugboat, which carried out a planned journey from the port of Odesa to the port of Mariupol in the Sea of Azov, and the Russian side was informed about the journey in advance. According to the command, the Russian ship Don rammed a Ukrainian tugboat, damaging the ship's main engine, shell plating and guard railing, and its life raft was lost.

Such actions of the Russian military contradict the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea and the Ukrainian-Russian treaty on cooperation in the use of the Azov Sea and the Kerch Strait, the command said.