WASHINGTON, D.C. – Admiral Ihor Voronchenko, the head of Ukraine’s navy, was in Washington on Dec. 12-15 to explain in detail Russia’s aggressive actions in the Kerch Strait and muster increased support – diplomatic and military – for his country.
Voronchenko had two days of talks with U.S. navy chief Admiral John Nicholson, and met with Congress and Senate members, as well as various analysts, academics and think tank members.
He and his staff members gave detailed presentations to bolster Ukraine’s case that it had acted in a strictly legal manner on Nov. 25, when Russian ships attacked and seized three Ukrainian navy vessels in the Black Sea and captured 24 Ukrainians on board.
Even though legally Ukraine and Russia have equal rights to use the Azov Sea and the Kerch Strait, Russia has de facto seized control of the strait. Since May, when Russia finished the construction of the Crimea Bridge that runs across the strait and connects Russian territory and the Crimea Peninsula, which Russia invaded and occupied in 2014, the Russians have been delaying the Ukrainian and international vessels heading in and out of the Azov Sea.
These tensions culminated with the Nov. 25 attack on the Ukrainian navy ships, when the Russians attacked and seized three Ukrainian vessels that tried to cross from the Black Sea into the Azov Sea through the Kerch Strait.
The attack opened a new chapter in Russia’s four-year-long war on Ukraine – it was the first time Russia had attacked Ukraine openly, not using proxies or soldiers in unmarked uniforms – as it had done in Crimea and eastern Ukraine.
The attack raised fears in Ukraine that Moscow was preparing for a full-fledged incursion, and Kyiv imposed martial law in 10 regions bordering Russia, the Black and Azov Seas and Moldova’s breakaway Transnistria region, where Moscow has garrisoned troops since the early 1990s.
The maritime attack caused a reaction in the West, too, with NATO pledging support for the Ukrainian navy and U.S. national-security adviser John Bolton saying U.S. President Trump would not meet with Russian President Vladimir Putin while Russia still holds Ukrainian vessels and sailors.
Amid this, Ukraine’s navy commander Voronchenko arrived in Washington to solidify support for his country.
In an exclusive interview with the Kyiv Post, Voronchenko said the Ukrainian vessels had obeyed Russian instructions to stop while a Russian vessel was called to escort them through the strait. After several hours of delay, the Ukrainians realized something was amiss and started to head back toward Odesa. It was then the Russian vessels attacked them.
Voronchenko said the Ukrainian gunboats were much faster than the Russian vessels and could have escaped them. But they decided not to abandon the tugboat they were escorting, whose crew of 12 was too large to transfer to the other Ukrainian vessels.
The Russian boats rammed the tugboat and hit one of the gunboats with shellfire, wounding three sailors. All 24 Ukrainian crew have been imprisoned in Moscow and the boats are in the Russian-occupied Crimean port of Kerch.
“I can say with 100 percent certainty that all command and control in this operation was run from Moscow. Not Rostov, not Crimea,” Voronchenko said. “Everything was according to instructions sanctioned by Mr. Putin.”
Putin’s plan
Voronchenko said he wanted his U.S. partners to know Putin was preparing to escalate the war against Ukraine.
“I came here to fully inform the U.S. and the world community about the dirty methods being used by this imperial machine,” Voronchenko said. “I want to tell them Ukraine is at the edge of evil.”
Voronchenko said satellite images showed a build-up of Moscow’s forces, especially tanks, in border areas near Ukraine, and he pointed to the deployment in Crimea of some 100 additional Russian combat aircraft, including Su-27 and Su-30 warplanes.
He said he felt that the military and political officials he spoke to in Washington understood the danger.
“I’m very grateful for the correct assessment they have made about the incident on Nov. 25,” he said. “When they saw the facts and evidence… I want to say that Ukraine won’t be left alone.”
Voronchenko said Ukraine needs more weapons to boost its defense capabilities, especially maritime weapons such as missiles, but would not say specifically what he had asked for in Washington.
He indicated that, as well as weapons, Ukraine wants U.S. and Western support for its own development efforts in such fields as new tanks and missile technology and for the revival of its formerly formidable shipbuilding capacity.
“Sanctions and condemnations alone won’t curb Putin’s ambitions, because if he stops using these type of aggressive methods that will mean the end for him,” said Voronchenko. “The Russian mentality needs a constant illusion or feeling of victories. If he cannot provide such victories his own people will try to get rid of him.”
During Voronchenko’s visit, the Pentagon again voiced support for Ukraine. U.S. Defense Secretary Jim Mattis had already condemned Moscow’s “brazen” violation of a 2003 treaty allowing both Russian and Ukrainian ships free passage in the Kerch Strait.
The admiral believes that although Western reaction to Russia’s Kerch Strait attack has stopped short of what Kyiv would like to see, Putin is getting desperate because the economic and diplomatic costs of hanging on to Crimea and the conflict-ravaged Donbas are constantly mounting.
“If Putin loses Crimea, he won’t be able to play the czar anymore, and he will lose all of Russia,” Voronchenko said.
Voronchenko said another looming problem the Kremlin hadn’t planned on is the lack of water in Crimea, where supplies are dwindling rapidly.
The largely barren peninsula used to receive 85 percent of its water via a special canal running from mainland Ukraine, but Kyiv closed the taps after Russia’s invasion. Water for agriculture has already mostly dried up, but shortages are becoming so acute that even drinking supplies will fall to critically low levels by next summer.
Voronchenko said he thought Putin was frustrated by the West’s response to the Kerch Strait aggression, and that makes the Russian leader more dangerous than ever.
“Now (Putin) is extremely nervous, and he’s like a rat in the corner of a dark room,” Voronchenko said.
“He doesn’t know what to do.”
