MOSCOW (Pakistan Point News / Sputnik - 21st December, 2018) Russian-US relations have become a victim of the provocation which the Ukrainian authorities have carried out in the Kerch Strait, the Kremlin spokesman, Dmitry Peskov, said on Thursday.
In late November, US President Donald Trump canceled his meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin, which was planned to be held on the sidelines of the G20 summit in Argentina, citing the fact that Russia had not returned to Ukraine the ships and sailors it had detained in the Kerch Strait after they had illegally crossed the Russian border.
"Our bilateral Russian-US relations are in the position of a victim of the provocation which the Ukrainian side performed near Kerch," Peskov told Russia's Channel One.
Russian-Ukrainian relations were in a far worse state than they had been before the beginning of the Ukrainian election campaign, Peskov continued.
"President [of Ukraine Petro] Poroshenko needs to boost his popularity rating by any means," the Kremlin spokesman suggested.
On November 25, Ukraine's Berdyansk and Nikopol gunboats and the Yany Kapu tugboat illegally crossed the Russian maritime border as they sailed toward the Kerch Strait, the entrance to the Sea of Azov. The Ukrainian vessels were seized by Russia after failing to respond to a demand to stop.
Following the incident, Poroshenko signed a decree declaring martial law in several Ukrainian regions located near the Russian border. Putin has said that the incident was a provocation prepared in advance as a pretext to introduce martial law, suspending voting rights, ahead of Ukraine's presidential election since Poroshenko's popularity ahead of the vote was low.
