Bloomberg: Merkel rejected Washington’s request to send German ships to the Kerch Straits

German Chancellor Angela Merkel has rejected a US request to send German ships to the Kerch Strait to send a “message” to Moscow, informed sources told Bloomberg.

According to sources, US Vice President Michael Pence called on Angela Merkel on the sidelines of the Munich Security Conference on February 16 to send German ships to the strait between the Crimea and the rest of Russian territory.

The move was intended to show the West’s determination not to retreat from the waters near the Russian coast and to send a signal to Russian President Vladimir Putin.

Bloomberg sources said Merkel rejected the request because Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko had doubts about the move.

Merkel was ready to send a joint group of ships in cooperation with France, crossing the Kerch Strait once, but Poroshenko considered that this would not be “a solution to the problem”, where there is a need to be a strait “open” permanently.

According to one source, France refused to participate in the exercise, and considered it “unnecessary provocation”.

This information comes to confirm that the incident of Russia’s detention last November of three Ukrainian ships with crew members in the Kerch Strait after violating the Russian border was a systematic process carried out by the Ukrainian navy with direct instructions from the United States to provoke Russia.

At the time, Western countries, particularly the United States, announced their solidarity with Ukraine, and demanded that Russia release the Ukrainian sailors and the captured vessels.

Russian President Vladimir Putin has confirmed that the sailors cannot be released before the court’s verdict on them, and they are accused of crossing the Russian border illegally.