Europe | Sea of troubles

Explaining the naval clash between Russia and Ukraine

Russia seizes three ships and seeks to landlock eastern Ukraine

“WE NEED TO fucking fuck them up, fuck…it seems like the president is controlling all this shit,” a Russian commander tells the captain whose ship rammed a Ukrainian military tug-boat in the Kerch Strait while another used live ammunition against a Ukrainian warship. The intercepted conversation, published on YouTube, provides a flavour of what happened between the Sea of Azov and the Black Sea on November 25th. A video shot aboard one of the Russian ships provides the images.

This article appeared in the Europe section of the print edition under the headline “Sea of troubles”

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