KIEV — Ukraine’s parliament on Monday voted to introduce martial law in the wake of Russia seizing Ukrainian vessels and detaining 24 sailors.
Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko made a personal appeal to lawmakers to back his plan for martial law, warning of “a highly serious threat of a ground operation against Ukraine” by Moscow.
Russia on Sunday opened fire on two Ukrainian armored artillery vessels and a tugboat off the coast of Crimea, which Russia’s FSB security service claimed had illegally entered its territorial waters. Russian authorities then seized the three naval ships and blocked the Kerch Strait.
Despite turbulent scenes in the Kiev parliament, during which MPs hurled insults at each other, deputies voted to approve an amended, scaled-back version of the president’s plan by a comfortable 50-vote margin.
The approved legislation foresees martial law being introduced for 30 days — cut back from Poroshenko’s original proposal of 60 days — in 10 of Ukraine’s 27 regions, which border Russia, the breakaway Transnistria region and the Black and Azov seas.
Immediately after, lawmakers voted to set a date for the country’s presidential election — March 31 next year — a move intended to reduce fears that Poroshenko would use martial law to postpone the election and hold onto power.
Sunday’s attack raised tensions between Kiev and Moscow to some of the highest levels since fighting erupted five years ago in eastern Ukraine — a conflict that has killed more than 10,300 people. It also unleashed a wave of crisis management within the international community.
Poroshenko received words of support from his Western counterparts, including German Chancellor Angela Merkel, while NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg urged Moscow to release the 24 Ukrainian servicemen taken captive, adding that “all allies” have expressed “full support” for Ukraine’s territorial sovereignty. Ukraine is not a NATO member but hopes to join the alliance.
Both Russia and Ukraine called an emergency session of the United Nations Security Council, at which the U.S. ambassador, Nikki Haley, warned the Kremlin over what she called an “outrageous violation” of Ukrainian sovereignty. Russia’s deputy U.N. ambassador, Dmitry Polyanskiy, blamed Kiev for provoking Russia.
International solidarity for the Ukrainian leader was not supported by many members of his own political establishment.
During a highly charged emergency session of the country’s parliament, lawmakers raised alarm over provisions that they said could severely restrict civil liberties and result in the postponement of the presidential election. Poroshenko, they said, is using the crisis with Russia to further his own political ambitions.
“We do not support the destruction of human rights under the guise of martial law,” shouted Yulia Tymoshenko, a former prime minister and now presidential hopeful.
High seas drama
Despite the opposition, there was a large contingent in parliament who supported the president’s initiative, driven by fears over what they consider to be one of the worst acts of “Russian aggression” against their country.
The crisis began when three Ukrainian naval vessels — two gunships and a tugboat — attempted to enter the Azov Sea through the Kerch Strait, its one point of entry.
Russia controls both sides of the strait, thanks to its annexation of Ukraine’s Crimean peninsula in 2014. It has built a bridge spanning the expanse of water, which has reduced the space for passage even further.
Moscow controls traffic in and out of the Azov Sea, which the two countries had earlier agreed to share freely. According to Kiev officials, Russian boats have stopped Ukrainian seacraft regularly for searches and questioning.
On Sunday, tensions that had been building for months exploded. Video footage showed a Russian craft ramming the Ukrainian tugboat. Moscow officials said the Ukrainian boats had “unlawfully entered temporarily closed” Russian waters. The Ukrainians denied the charges.
Later in the day, reports emerged that the Russians had opened fire on the three Ukrainian vessels, seizing their crews and injuring three crewmen. Poroshenko called an emergency session of his war Cabinet and then the national security council, after which he announced he would submit a decree to parliament to introduce martial law to counter any further escalation.
Devil in the details
Some of the concerns about the president’s proposal were allayed with the parliament’s approval of the final, amended version. The 30-day limit likewise removes the possibility that the decree’s time period will bleed into the presidential campaign, which begins in January.
Poroshenko’s approval ratings have been dropping steadily and he now finds himself in third place behind Tymoshenko and Volodymyr Zelensky, an actor who plays a president in a Ukrainian comedy series.
But in other respects the legislation’s language is vague, and it’s not entirely clear how martial law will bolster the country’s defenses.
An additional document submitted to parliament allows for the government to limit rights such as freedom of expression, assembly and movement, and limit the powers of the press if the need arises. Poroshenko gave a verbal promise that Ukrainians’ civil liberties would not be reduced.
Still, some early opponents saw a definite victory in the president’s compromises. “By setting the elections for March 31, the scenario, foreseen in the first version of the president’s decree where the vote would be postponed because of the military situation, fell through,” Serhiy Leshchenko, a reformist deputy in Poroshenko’s parliamentary bloc, wrote on social media.
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