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KERCH STRAIT PROVOCATION

Poroshenko pledges not to extend martial law in Ukraine

Ukraine’s parliament earlier endorsed President Pyotr Poroshenko’s decree on imposing martial law for 30 days

KIEV, November 28. /TASS/. Ukrainian President Pyotr Poroshenko said on Wednesday he had no plans to extend martial law imposed in ten regions of the country after the Kerch Strait incident.

"If Ukraine’s moves and international reaction stop the aggressor now, martial law will end in 30 days. I am not going to extend it," the Ukrainian president said during his trip to Chernigov.

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Poroshenko’s crackdown on the public: Martial law across Ukraine’s 10 regions takes effect

He said, however, that the task had been set "not to waste a single minute in case of an open full-scale ground aggression".

Ukraine’s parliament, the Verkhovna Rada, earlier endorsed President Pyotr Poroshenko’s decree on imposing martial law for a period of 30 days from November 28 in the Vinnitsa, Lugansk, Nikolayev, Odessa, Sumy, Kharkov, Chernigov, Donetsk, Zaporozhye and Kherson Regions, as well as in Ukraine’s territorial waters in the Sea of Azov.

The pretext for the decision to declare martial law was the recent border violation clash in the Kerch Strait on November 25, when three Ukrainian naval ships breached the current rules of passage from the Black Sea to the Sea of Azov. The intruding Ukrainian vessels illegally crossed the Russian state border, trespassed into Russian territorial waters and conducted dangerous maneuvers. In defiance of repeated warnings and demands to stop, the Ukrainian ships kept violating the law by continuing their risky maneuvers, which drove the Russian forces to use gunfire in order to compel them to stop.

As a result, all three ships were detained. In addition, three Ukrainians injured in the incident were given medical assistance. A criminal case was opened over the violation of the Russian state border. Moscow described the incident as a provocation.

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