#hybridwar

What was the unfolding of this new episode between Russia and Ukraine? After the events of 25 November in the Kerch Strait, and the capture of three Ukrainian ships by the Russian navy, the UN Security Council met in emergency on Monday.  The facts, as reported by the witnesses to the events, are extremely simple: three Ukrainian ships and their crews - two military patrol boats and a tug - were attacked by the Russian fleet. A first ship was deliberately and violently hit by a Russian warship (we hear the captain order to crush this ship). The other two came under fire from the Russians. Then the FSB commandos seized the three Ukrainian buildings. Some may think that Russia has a right of nature over everything in its immediate and remote environment, but the facts are stubborn and if we consider them in good faith, in a spirit of truth, There is little room for honest questioning about the responsibilities of this "incident". There is no doubt that there will be a number of people to relay the most far-fetched hypotheses, such as when the Crimean military manu was reattached to Russia, the outbreak of a hybrid war in Donbass or the strike by a missile of a Malaysia Airlines airliner, flight MH 17 of July 17, 2014, another "incident" which resulted in 298 casualties. In this case, this aggression must be put into perspective. Let's start with the geopolitical coordinates of the question. The military annexation of the Crimea, apart from any international legality, means that both sides of the Kerch Strait, the Kerch Peninsula on the one hand (the eastern end of the Crimean peninsula) and the Tamen peninsula on the other hand (Russia), are now under the political and military control of Russian power. But the Kerch Strait controls the passage between the Black Sea and the Sea of Azov. If the Sea of Azov is probably absent from the mental representations of many French and Western Europeans, its area is not negligible: about 30,000 km², a size equivalent to that of Belgium. Despite the armed conflict opened in March 2014 between Russia and Ukraine, and the secession of part of the Donbass under the control of Moscow, the northern facade of the Sea of Azov is still under the legal and effective sovereignty of Ukraine. It has two economically active ports, with relatively deep water (9 meters): Berdyansk and, even more, Marioupol (about twenty kilometers from the Donbass front line). These two ports account for one fifth of Ukrainian exports. Since 2014, Moscow controlling both shores of the Kerch Strait, the Sea of Azov is virtually a Russian "lake". Read the full article