A sign of their long-standing divisions on how to handle President Vladimir Putin's Russia, the 28 EU states were still struggling on Wednesday to agree a joint statement, three days after Russia seized Ukrainian navy vessels and sailors. In interviews with Germany’s Bild newspaper and the Funke newspaper group on Thursday, Poroshenko rejected Russia’s charge that the vessels’ entry into the Azov Sea - a body of water shared by Ukraine and Russia on which the Ukrainian ports of Mariupol and Berdyansk sit - was a provocation. Lungescu said “there is already a lot of NATO in the Black Sea, and we will continue to assess our presence in the region.”

German Chancellor Angela Merkel says she plans to press Russian President Vladimir Putin at this weekend’s G-20 summit in Argentina about his country’s seizure of three Ukrainian ships and their crews.
Ukraine's Infrastructure Minister Volodymyr Omelyan says the ports of Berdiansk and Mariupol are effectively under blockade as Russia refuses to let any Ukrainian vessels leave or enter the Sea of Azov. President Petro Poroshenko calls on NATO to send warships to patrol the Sea of Azov.