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Incident I00047: Sea of Azov

  • Summary: An international incident occurred on 25 November 2018 when the Russian Federal Security Service (FSB) coast guard fired upon and captured three Ukrainian Navy vessels attempting to pass from the Black Sea into the Sea of Azov through the Kerch Strait on their way to the port of Mariupol. In 2014, Russia had annexed the nearby Crimean Peninsula, which is dominantly internationally recognised as Ukrainian territory. It later constructed the Crimean Bridge across the strait. Under a 2003 treaty, the strait and the Azov Sea are intended to be the shared territorial waters of both countries, and freely accessible. The Russian Federal Security Service (FSB), which is also responsible for border protection, claims that the ships illegally entered Russian waters. The FSB alleges that crews did not comply with demands to stop. In the scuffle, a Russian border patrol ship rammed and damaged a Ukrainian Navy tugboat. Russian forces later seized all three Ukrainian ships, confiscating them for violating Russia's border. Six Ukrainian navy soldiers were injured, the Ukrainian navy reported.

  • incident type: incident

  • Year started: 2018

  • Countries: Russia , World

  • Found via:

  • Date added: 2019-03-20

Technique Description given for this incident
T0001 5Ds (dismiss, distort, distract, dismay, divide) IT00000128 4 D's (dismiss, distort, distract, dismay...Official channels ie: Embassies & Defence Ministry; TASS
T0001 5Ds (dismiss, distort, distract, dismay, divide) IT00000129 Russian FSB security service blamed Ukraine for sparking the clashes, saying their "irrefutable" evidence would "soon be made public
T0023 Distort facts IT00000130 (Distort) Kremlin-controlled RT cited Russian Minister of Foreign Affairs Sergei Lavrov suggesting that Ukraine deliberately provoked Russia in hopes of gaining additional support from the United States and Europe.
T0040 Demand unsurmountable proof IT00000133 Demand insurmountable proof
T0053 Twitter trolls amplify and manipulate IT00000132 Twitter trolls amplify & manipulate
T0054 Twitter bots amplify IT00000131 Twitter bots amplify & manipulate

DO NOT EDIT ABOVE THIS LINE - PLEASE ADD NOTES BELOW

Actor: Russia

Timeframe: November 25, 2018 - ongoing

Date: November 25, 2018

Presumed goals:

  • Russian media,quoted authorities who accused Kyiv of seeking to “create a conflict situation.” “The same Moscow spokespeople who assured us in 2014 that the little green men who seized Crimea were not Russian soldiers—until Vladimir Putin himself spilled the beans weeks later—are now telling the world that volatile maneuvers of Ukrainian ships led to the collision November 25.
  • Russian FSB security service blamed Ukraine for sparking the clashes, saying their "irrefutable" evidence would "soon be made public". Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said on the next day that Ukraine had violated international legal norms by failing to obtain authorisation for its vessels. Deputy Chairman of the State Duma Pyotr Tolstoy warned of the danger of a war.
  • The goal of this campaign is to create confusion, to portray Ukraine as the culprit for both the Kerch Strait incident and the deteriorating security situation in the region, and to exonerate Russia of any responsibility.

Method:

  • (Distort) Kremlin-controlled RT cited Russian Minister of Foreign Affairs Sergei Lavrov suggesting that Ukraine deliberately provoked Russia in hopes of gaining additional support from the United States and Europe. distracting the audience from the main issue – Russia shooting at Ukrainian boats and capturing the vessels and crews. Instead they target the president of Ukraine, Petro Poroshenko: “Washington incited Poroshenko to launch this “sea provocation” against Russia in order to “thwart the Putin -Trump meeting”” and “President of Ukraine Petro Poroshenko uses the Kerch provocation for a coup d’état“. But in reality, the Ukrainian Parliament adopted a resolution scheduling the presidential elections for 31 March 2019. Dismissing the critic has also found its place under the sun of Kremlin info-war. Claims were spread that the Russian ships have moved so far ahead “in their technological development” that they “do not use ramming as a tactic“.

  • Attempts to pollute the German Twitter: Russian disinformation does not only rely on its own resources to spread its narratives about Ukraine. Twitter has been used so heavily that Russia Today and Sputnik are scoring more engagement than some of the German quality media combined. Between Sunday and Tuesday, more than 10,000 German-language Tweets from 3,000 unique accounts mentioned Ukraine, almost all of them relating to the confrontation in the Sea of Azov. Despite the large overall number of tweeters, a small group of 30 accounts has been driving a significant share of the debate so far.

  • Dmitry Peskov described Ukrainian navy’s actions as “an invasion of foreign military ships into Russia’s territorial waters.” Belittling Ukraine’s navy; Ridiculing and dehumanising Ukrainians - This ridiculing of Ukraine’s navy echoes other cases when disinformation has been used to show Ukraine as weak and dependent.

Counters:

Related incidents:

  • This is not the first time the Kremlin has used the four-D tactics.
  • @DFRLab has documented the Kremlin’s use of the 4Ds of disinformation to deny its involvement in the downing of the Malaysian Airlines flight MH17 over Ukraine, the Skripal poisoning, and the interference in the U.S. Presidential elections in 2016.

References:

Datasets:

Notes:

Given anything related to the ukraine is a key testing ground/flashpoint for Russia narrative manipultion & anti-democracy disinformation, the incident and geographic chokepoint will be an ongoing issue.

The Kerch Strait is the only connection between the Black Sea and the Sea of Azov, and the only way to reach two important Ukrainian ports, Mariupol and Berdiansk. The route is vital for Mariupol's two large metallurgical plants. Russia has controlled the strait since annexing Crimea in 2014, which has made traffic significantly more difficult for Ukrainian ships. The consequences of Russian control have become particularly noticeable since the completion of the Crimean Bridge in May 2018. The bridge connects the Russian mainland with the occupied peninsula. The FSB inspects all ships bound for Ukraine, sometimes taking days, which has aggravated the situation. The volume of freight has steadily declined since then. The war in Ukraine's Donbass region is also problematic for Ukraine's ports.

this most recent escalation in the Kerch Strait is aggravating the already existing conflict between Ukraine and Russia that began after the annexation of Crimea in 2014.

On the evening of 28 November, Ukrainian Infrastructure Minister Volodymyr Omelyan said that vessels bound for the ports of Berdyansk and Mariupol awaited entrance to the Sea of Azov and vessels were also waiting to go southbound. He characterised this as a virtual blockade. No vessels were identified as Ukrainian. On 4 December Omelyan stated that Russia did let ships reach Berdyansk and Mariupol again. The same day the Ukrainian Ministry of Temporarily Occupied Territories and IDPs claimed that the accumulation of ships waiting to go to the Ukrainian ports had led to several accidents. Russia denied it ever blocked vessels from sailing to Ukrainian ports and asserted that any possible disruptions were due to bad weather On 19 January 2019, USS Donald Cook entered the Black Sea, being the second American vessel to arrive in the Black Sea after the Kerch Strait incident after USS Fort McHenry entered in 10 January 2019 In March 2019, Canada, the United States and the EU imposed sanctions on Russian citizens and companies for their participation in the incident and activities in Crimea and separatist-controlled eastern Ukraine