Ukraine has declared martial law in response to Russian actions against its naval vessels and claims of a ‘large scale invasion’ being planned.

The parliament backed President Petro Poroshenko’s request to introduce Martial Law in regions mostly bordering Russia for 30 days starting from 28 November.

This could lead to widespread compulsory military service, restrictions on media and public demonstrations , amongst other measures.

This comes after clashes occurred when a Russian cargo ship stopped three Ukrainian Navy vessels from passing under the Kerch Strait Bridge. Russia fired on and seized three Ukrainian vessels off the coast of annexed Crimea. Two gunboats and a tug were captured by Russian special forces after a chase. According to Ukraine, six Ukrainian crew members were injured.

Earlier, Russia’s border guard service had accused Ukraine of not informing it in advance of the ships’ journey, something Kiev denied, and said the Ukrainian ships had been manoeuvring dangerously and ignoring its instructions with the aim of stirring up tensions.

Earlier today (Monday, November 26th) the President of Ukraine claimed to have evidence that Russia was planning a ‘large scale’ invasion of Ukraine.

Oana Lungescu, a NATO spokesperson, said “NATO is closely monitoring developments in the Azov Sea and the Kerch Strait, and we are in contact with the Ukrainian authorities. We call for restraint and de-escalation.”

With officials from both countries accusing the other of provocative behaviour and relations still raw after Russia’s 2014 annexation of Ukraine’s Crimea and its backing for a pro-Moscow insurgency in eastern Ukraine, the incident risks pushing the two countries towards a wider conflict.

Read a summary of the conflict so far here.

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George has a degree in Cyber Security from Glasgow Caledonian University and has a keen interest in naval and cyber security matters and has appeared on national radio and television to discuss current events. George is on Twitter at @geoallison
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dave12
dave12
5 years ago

Echoes of the roots of WW2 are striking.

Y T
Y T
5 years ago

it isn’t echo
somewhere it is REAL war is going with real deaths, and even UK warranties didn’t prevent this.
So all promises are useless none any country has to trust to any other.

dave12
dave12
5 years ago
Reply to  Y T

Wow, you complain about my punctuation look at yours,you dont even make any sense putinbot and they pay you lol!!

Marc
Marc
5 years ago

Nothing to do with us we stay out of it.

Frank62
Frank62
5 years ago
Reply to  Marc

Appeasement has never worked. If Russia is allowed to bully & annex neighbouring states, they will do, as will China( already annexed Tibet, South China sea & courting many nations with their economic powers), as will any dictator anywhere in the world who sees they can get away with it. It’s up to the freedom loving nations to stand up to it before the world goes to pot. Having allies like Saudi Arabia doen’t help our cause.

Marc
Marc
5 years ago
Reply to  Frank62

Spoken like a true globalist send your own kids not mine to fight your damned staged wars.

Frank62
Frank62
5 years ago
Reply to  Marc

I’m no globalist Marc. Just looking at the writing on the wall & remembering how Hiltler started with pro German areas like the Saar, Austria & the Sudetenland. Japan entered WW2 after fgacing crippling sanctions. We’re probably less well prepared for war today than we were in 1939 or 1941 by a long way. Therefore we may wish to walk softly, but we have no big stick. I have two sons of military age who I’d hate to see going into a war, but our military weaknesses only encourages the likes of Russia & China or any other who sees… Read more »

Steve
Steve
5 years ago
Reply to  Marc

That’s a terrible idea. Imagine if we’d said the same thing in 1939 when Germany invaded Poland.

If us, the US and others had said the same thing about Islamic State when they began their campaign in Iraq and Syria, IS would have taken Baghdad by now.

As others have said, appeasement or just ignoring it because we’re ok is just kicking the can down the road and making it worse for later.

Fedaykin
Fedaykin
5 years ago
Reply to  Steve

“That’s a terrible idea. Imagine if we’d said the same thing in 1939 when Germany invaded Poland.”

In 1945 the Soviet Union annexed Poland…

Helions
Helions
5 years ago

The Russians are sending to a message to Ukraine through this and actions like it. Stay out of NATO or else…

Cheers.

Y T
Y T
5 years ago
Reply to  Helions

wish you have the same message!!

John Clark
John Clark
5 years ago

Well if you egnore bad behaviour in a child, you effectively enable them and make it worse. Countries are no different. Russian aggressive behaviour is only getting worse, from chemical weapons attacks on the heart of England, to their increasingly dark threatening and insidious actions towards the Baltic States, Georgia and the Ukraine. We nothing at our peril, it will be seen as weakness and encourage futher Russian aggressive behaviour in all areas, including further overt assassinations in western countries. At one time I would have said keep out of these issues, now I would allow Georgia and Ukraine into… Read more »

Frank62
Frank62
5 years ago
Reply to  John Clark

Russia respects strength, your quite right there, but Europe has been on a binge of demilitarisation since humiliating Russia by winning the cold war, leaving our strength dangerously weak.
Sanctions can only be partly effective, but don’t forget that sanctions against Japan in 1940-41 drove them to make war for which we were very ill prepared for. Russia & China just completed major joint exercises only this summer & China is building a fleet to seriously challange USN intervention in the far east.

Son_of_numeric
Son_of_numeric
5 years ago
Reply to  Frank62

NATO conduct major exercises every year. Russia aren’t ready for a conventional conflict with the west and China are realistically nowhere near the strength of the US.

Steve
Steve
5 years ago
Reply to  Frank62

Same thing with Germany in WW2, the effective sanctions put in place after WW1 made the perfect case for Hitler.

Sanctions don’t really work, all they do is isolate a country and make their case for hating the other country.

wasp snorter
wasp snorter
5 years ago
Reply to  Steve

They also annexed half of Poland in 1939 – but we didn’t do anything then.

Elliott
Elliott
5 years ago
Reply to  John Clark

Clark
That premise would require me to view Russia as a child or grandchild. I don’t, I view them as a fellow nation.
Second it would require me to say that Russia is doing something out of the ordinary. That they are truly acting differently than the West.
Third this view “we have to do something” is incorrect. My neighbor may bang two crack whores every night but that is not my business. That would be a moral buisy body’s buisness.

Eufster
Eufster
5 years ago

Russia is the big fat bully of the world, the only solution is to stand united against them. They should be removed from the security council for starters.

Nicholas
Nicholas
5 years ago

If China did not annex the South China sea, some other nation would of done it as well. As for the Russians, Putin only applies military might where he knows he can get away with it.

David Steeper
David Steeper
5 years ago
Reply to  Nicholas

Nicholas. So maybe the answer is to not let him get away with it ?

Steve
Steve
5 years ago
Reply to  David Steeper

and the next question is just how do you go about doing that without starting WW3 ourselves.

There is nothing we can realistically do to stop them, beyond negative words.

David Steeper
David Steeper
5 years ago
Reply to  Steve

Steve your seriously suggesting there’s nothing we can do between doing nothing and starting WW3 ?

Steve
Steve
5 years ago
Reply to  David Steeper

Name it? I am being serious here, its not as easy as you might first think. Its really not easy to stop a big nation (or small) nation doing what they want short of actual military actions. The days of being able to blockage ports etc without starting full out war are long gone. Seriously we move military assets into Ukraine, we risk WW3 and frankly put our troops at risk in a war we can not win. We already have sanctions in place against Russia, yes we can increase them but they realistically have little impact. What can we… Read more »

Steve
Steve
5 years ago
Reply to  David Steeper

Don’t get me wrong, i think we should do something, I just can’t come up with anything.

Let’s say we put a measure in the UN, it will just get veto’ed by Russia/China, so meaningless.

Frank62
Frank62
5 years ago
Reply to  David Steeper

It’s a failiure of post cold war policy in the west (including EU empire building) that has got us here before taking Russia’s politics into consideration. WW3 MAD is high in everybodies thoughts. Maybe something like the UN intervention in the Korean war is a possibility to halt Russian aggression. Nobody wants war, but sometimes too many mistakes have already been been made. I really want to avoid it. I have tremendous love & respect for the Rusian nation & people, though not for dictators like Putin.

Rokuth
Rokuth
5 years ago
Reply to  Nicholas

Nicholas, there is something extremely disturbing about your statement about the South China Sea. Some other country? Last time that happened it was the Japanese. Today there are several independent sovereign countries in South East Asia that have equal claims to the South China Sea. Unlike China, they do not claim the entire Sea but those areas adjacent to their coastline, and those islands that they may have historical claim to. China does not. They claim that since the Seas have “China” in their name, they are therefore Chinese. By this same reasoning, India can lay claim to the entire… Read more »

geoff
geoff
5 years ago

A very dangerous situation and the scary part is that the War that truly will end all Wars could be sparked by the ‘small man syndrome’ that appears to afflict Putin. I agree with comments above that there has to be some red lines drawn in front of Russian aggression but what if Putin doesn’t blink first. A conflict could and probably would escalate quickly in to an all out nuclear holocaust.
Brexit isn’t what we should be worrying about..

Steve
Steve
5 years ago

The problem is people take selective memories from history. If you look back to early days of Hitler, you could say appeasement didn’t work which is clearly one reading but is probably only part of the story. The problem is it wasn’t the full story, Britain / France had just come out of a messy war and were looking at Germany and thinking if we try and stop them we will trigger another huge messy war. They were also looking at the countries being attacked early on and realizing they were too far away to reinforce fast enough, and so… Read more »

DaveyB
DaveyB
5 years ago
Reply to  Steve

Neville Chamberlains diaries have been recently released to the public and it highlights why he aggressively pushed for appeasement. The UK had just come out of recession and there was severe riots in India over independence. The armed forces at the time were purely set up to police the Empire with a small reactionary force in case of trouble. From his diaries he wrote of his meetings with Hitler and realised very quickly on that Hitler would not be satisfied with just annexing the Sudetenland etc. Also, he recognised that another war was very likely, but the armed force and… Read more »

Steve
Steve
5 years ago
Reply to  DaveyB

There is one thing for sure, if there is a war, no one wins, and everyone loses.

Economies will be destroyed further and it will very much play into the hands of China, like happened with the US after WW2.

Daniele Mandelli
Daniele Mandelli
5 years ago
Reply to  DaveyB

Grwatcpoat.

Daniele Mandelli
Daniele Mandelli
5 years ago

Omg…damned phone! Great post.

Edit facility please??

Jonathan
Jonathan
5 years ago
Reply to  Steve

It is still the majority view amongst Histirians that the balance of power at the point Hitler annexed Sudetenland meant that Germany was not in a position to go to War with the British Empire and Or the Third republic, infact it is very likely that a single Alied Power acting agressively towards German at that point would have knock Hitlers government out of power, points to back this up: 1) he had just blackmailed and removed the leadership of the German army because it had told him the Germany was not ready for war and would loss in short… Read more »

Ron
Ron
5 years ago

Steve, I understand what you are saying and it is difficult to think of something. There is an idea however the response could be bad. Hold secret negotiations with the Ukraine and prepare two NATO Armoured Corps and an Air Group. then release information that the Ukraine has joined NATO and within 30 minutes of the press release move One Corp to the Baltic States and One into the Ukraine. NATO has done nothing wrong, it has not invaded a third party country, it has only redeployed troops to aid and integrate full members into the defence pact. Yes, I… Read more »

Steve
Steve
5 years ago
Reply to  Ron

Moving that many assets would require serious coordination across multiple countries and Russia would for sure find out. We would then give Russia the perfect excuse for invading the rest of Ukraine on the context that they are countering a NATO aggression or at least further justification for its position of reinforcing its western border against the NATO expansion. There is also the problem that NATO does not want Ukraine as a member, for multiple reasons but mainly because they would just be a liability. Plus I believe Ukraine originally decided not to join. Also how sure would we be… Read more »

Steve
Steve
5 years ago
Reply to  Steve

The problem is, if you take the nukes out of the equation, does the west really want to go to war over Ukraine, a country that has a questionable government and economy is in a mess.

Add to the equation, like WW2, we have just come out of 2 messy wars, further reducing any desire within the UK population to go to war again.

Frank62
Frank62
5 years ago
Reply to  Steve

Very good points Steve. If we find ourselves in a war, the failiure of governments would be in entering it so poorly prepared that many 1,000 of casualties happen unnecessarily in the time it takes to recover from the folly & trechery of running down our armed forces way beyond reason. That it could trigger a nuclear war on any level simply emphasises the imbecility of conventional force cuts. Imagine a conquered Ukraine under Russian occupation. The killed in combat, the killed in resistance, the masses of imprisoned & tortured, the bitter resentment that the west just fiddled & navel… Read more »

Frank62
Frank62
5 years ago
Reply to  Frank62

We should remember that Russia has violated the many bi-lateral treaties to respect Ulrainian soveriegnty in all it’s done. Including the joint access to the sea of Azov in this case.

MikeR
MikeR
5 years ago
Reply to  Ron

If Ukraine joined NATO would we not have to go to war to free the occupied areas of the Ukraine? Rather than fight with tanks etc, why not go after the Russians with a campaign to cause a political revolution in Russia.

BB85
BB85
5 years ago

Im not pro Russia but it is a bit strange this is the first time Ukraine has called martial law right before an election when they did not declare it in 2014 when they where actually invade. The Ukraine president was down in the polls if Russia was to invade they would have done it already. I dont see this war achieving anything just turning Ukraine onto Syria if both sides do go at it.

P tattersall
P tattersall
5 years ago

Russian doesn’t have the money are forces to invade Ukraine full scale

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Jeff
Jeff
5 years ago

Ukraine should have never given up their nukes all those years ago…..

Greg Jones.
5 years ago

An old Russian military saying “ you push, and push and push some more, until you meet cold,hard steel. Then you stop pushing.
Time to put the maximum number of warheads on each Trident missile and move assets to western Ukraine. Russia is going broke, Putin’s hold on power depends on military expenditure he cannot sustain and making Russia look tough. He falls once Russia fails. He may decide taking everyone with him is preferable. We also need Astor anti ballistic missiles now.

Mr Bell
Mr Bell
5 years ago

P Tattersall. Putin pays his armed forces peanuts. Russia can and would be able to afford to invade the Ukraine. It would give them access to rich arable lands and a further population of many millions of taxpayers. Crucially it would give Putin’s Russia some liebensraum and he would be loved by a Russian populace fed on lies and propoganda from a state controlled media.
Could Russia invade the Ukraine? Yes
Will they?
Depends on the calculation of what Putin thinks NATO will do in response.

Ron
Ron
5 years ago

Possibly it is just me but I see a similarity in what Putin is doing in the Ukraine to Hitler with Czechoslovakia and the Sudetenland. I also see a similarity in the response to Putin from the West and the Anglo-French response to Hitler. We all know how that went with Hitler. I for one do not want to see a shooting war with Russia but at the same time a wise man once said that to have peace you must prepare for war. I asked i an earlier post if it might be an idea to pull the Ukraine… Read more »

Mr Bell
Mr Bell
5 years ago

Problem is can you seriously invite Ukraine and Russia to join NATO? they are both dodgy countries with questionable governance and riddled with fraud and corruption. Putin is rumoured to have some £25 billion squirrelled away in various Swiss bank accounts. MI6 and the CIA have tracked these accounts and know this to be true. Then in the Ukraine- a population of +50 million and yet they cannot afford to push Russia back in the east to the border? really why is that when Ukraine is comparatively resource rich?- because of corruption. For every dollar spent fighting the war and… Read more »