NATO announced the meeting in a statement after the alliance’s head Jens Stoltenberg held a phone call with Ukraine’s President Petro Poroshenko on Monday “about developments in the Azov Sea and Kerch Strait ... involving Russian and Ukrainian naval vessels.”

“The Secretary General expressed NATO’s full support for Ukraine’s territorial integrity and sovereignty, including its full navigational rights in its territorial waters under international law,” it said. “I appeal to the leadership of the Russian Federation with a demand to immediately release the Ukrainian servicemen who were brutally detained in violation of international law and whose fate is unknown,” Poroshenko said, adding that Russia must “de-escalate the situation.”

If the Ukrainian Parliament approves martial law, it will be the first time Kiev has taken such an action since Russia annexed Crimea in 2014, which led to the deteriorating relationship between the two countries. Just before parliament met to vote, he sought to allay those fears by releasing a statement revising his original martial law proposal from 60 days to 30, to “do away with the pretexts for political speculation”. The Kerch Strait and the Sea of Azov are designated as shared territorial waters by a 2003 treaty, but Russia has asserted more control over the waterways since it annexed Crimea in 2014 in a move that drew widespread condemnation and international sanctions.
An emergency National Security and Defense Council of Ukraine meeting is convened in response to the Russian blockade of the Kerch Strait and the seizure of its vessels, after which President Petro Poroshenko says he will ask the Verkhovna Rada to support a declaration of martial law in Ukraine. The parliament is set to have an emergency meeting at 4 p.m. local time on November 26.