Ukraine has barred Russian men of military age from entering the country amid an escalating military and diplomatic standoff following last weekend's naval clash. Petro Poroshenko, the president of Ukraine, said the ban on male Russian citizens between the ages of 16 and 60 would be imposed under the state of martial law he declared in a response to Russia's seizure of three Ukrainian ships and their crews in the Black Sea on Sunday. "These are measures to block the Russian Federation from forming detachments of private armies here, which in fact are representatives of the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation," Mr Poroshenko said. The move will "not allow them to carry out the operations that they tried to conduct in 2014," he added. Mr Poroshenko was referring to Russia's deployment of large numbers of unmarked soldiers and undercover agents into Ukraine during its annexation of Crimea and a subsequent separatist uprising in the east of the country four years ago. Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko leads a National Security and Defence Council meeting in Kiev, Ukraine, Friday Credit: Mykhailo Markiv/ Presidential Press Service But the move is likely to have a devastating impact on millions of Ukrainians and Russians with family and business links on both sides of the border. Russia's foreign ministry said it had no plans to retaliate with a similar ban on Ukrainian citizens. Russian forces rammed, fired on, and boarded three Ukrainian ships trying to pass through the strait of Kerch, the seaway that links the Black and Azov Seas on Sunday. It was the most dangerous clash between the two sides since the last large-scale fighting in eastern Ukraine ended in 2015, and has raised fears of open conflict. Moscow has charged the 24 crewmen it took prisoner with illegally crossing the Russian border and sentenced them to two months' detention. Trump and Putin at their first summit in Helsinki in July Crimea's human rights ombudsman Lyudmila Lubina said the 24 Ukrainian sailors captured by Russia had been moved to Moscow. Ukraine described the Russian move as as illegal attempt to impose a blockade its industrial and military ports on the Sea of Azov. The move came a day after Donald Trump cancelled a scheduled meeting with Vladimir Putin because Russia has not released the captured Ukrainian sailors. The two presidents were scheduled to hold their first formal sit-down meeting since July at the G20 summit in Argentina on Saturday Speaking to reporters in Buenos Aires, Mr Trump said on Friday that the naval clash was the "sole reason" for cancelling the meeting. The Kremlin called the move "regrettable". "This means that discussion of important issues on the international and bilateral agenda will be postponed indefinitely," Dmitry Peskov, Mr Putin's spokesman, said. He said Mr Putin "is ready to have contacts with his American counterpart." On Thursday Michael Cohen, Mr Trump's former lawyer, pleaded guilty to lying about his client's links with Russia before he was elected president. The clash has also exposed rifts within Europe, with British, Baltic, and Polish calls for new sanctions being rebuffed by France and Germany. Bulgarian MPs gave the go ahead for the country to join the TurkStream, a gas pipeline project designed to re-route Russia exports around Ukraine. Earlier in the week Germany rebuffed calls from Ukraine and the United States to to re-think Nord Stream 2, a gas pipeline linking the country with Russia.
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