Kerch Strait Crisis: Poroshenko Requests Martial Law

What's bizarre about the reporting of the naval clash between Russia and Ukraine at the Kerch Strait is that The New York Times dispatch, written by Andrew Kramer, "Ukraine, After Naval Clash With Russia, Considers Martial Law," while hewing to the Western line that Russia is at fault, nonetheless manages to add flesh to a dark Ukrainian conspiracy, the likes of which you won't find on RT or Sputnik. According to Kramer,

At a midnight meeting, Ukraine’s National Security and Defense Council said it would ask Parliament to declare a state of martial law. That raised alarms that President Petro O. Poroshenko could use the incident to delay a presidential election scheduled for March that polls suggest he is unlikely to win.

“This whole story grows more complicated by the fact that during martial law, it is forbidden to hold presidential, parliamentary or local elections, as well as strikes, protests, rallies and mass actions,” Mustafa Nayyem, a member of Parliament, posted on Facebook.

Poroshenko is polling in the single digits. Clara Weiss in "Russia fires on and captures Ukrainian Navy ships" adds some texture to the political mood in Kiev:

Poroshenko’s escalation of the military conflict with Russia is driven, to a large measure, by the growing domestic crisis of his regime. Almost five years after an imperialist-orchestrated, fascistic coup brought it to power, the Poroshenko regime is mired in crisis. Recent media reports suggested that some one million people in Ukraine live on the brink of starvation.

Hundreds of thousands have left the country since 2014, fleeing war and social devastation (see: “Ukraine’s depopulation crisis”). The past months saw several strikes by Ukrainian miners, railway workers and other sections of the working class. Polls show Poroshenko with the highest negative ranking of any candidate in the upcoming presidential elections.

Post-coup Ukraine is a failed state project of the West, different from but similar to Kosovo and Libya. The heat can be turned up or the flame reduced to a low burn depending on the whims of leaders in Europe and the United States; sending Ukrainian warships unannounced into the Sea of Azov is an effective way to goad the bear while at the same time bolstering their chosen lackey Petro Poroshenko.

I thought Iran would be the target for a martial crisis during the lame duck, but maybe it's Mother Russia.