Russia Returns Ships – level 3
25-11-2019 15:00
Last year, Russia seized three Ukrainian military ships off the coast of the Crimean Peninsula. The ships tried to pass through the Kerch Strait, which is an important route for ships, and it runs by Crimea.
Russia annexed Crimea from Ukraine in 2014, but the two countries share the Kerch Strait.
Petro Poroshenko, the former Ukranian president, imposed martial law in reaction to Russia seizing the ships, however, the current president, Volodymyr Zelenskyy, is trying to calm the situation.
Just weeks before a Paris peace summit of Russia, Ukraine, France and Germany, Russia returned the ships to Ukraine. However, it is not clear what the state of the ships is and if Russia took their equipment and documentation.
Difficult words: seize (to take something by force), annex (to take an area of a country by force and add it to one’s own country), martial law (a time when a military controls a government, usually in the case of an emergency).
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