Russia’s Illegal Restriction of Navigation in the Black Sea
The view from a ship conducting exercises in the Black Sea in 2015. (NATO, https://flic.kr/p/rGTENb; CC BY-NC-ND 2.0, https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/2.0/)
Russia recently announced that it was closing off portions of the Black Sea off the Crimean Peninsula and near the Kerch Strait to foreign warships and other state vessels from April 24 to Oct. 31. The announcement was immediately condemned by both Kyiv and Washington. U.S. State Department spokesperson Ned Price expressed deep concern over Moscow’s declaration, denouncing the move as another unprovoked escalation in Russia’s ongoing efforts to undermine and destabilize Ukraine. The closures come at a time when Russia is significantly building up its forces in Crimea and around the Ukrainian border on a scale not seen since it invaded Crimea in 2014, although there are reports that the Kremlin has ordered the withdrawal of some of its troops from the