MOSCOW (Reuters) - The Kremlin said on Wednesday that Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko had requested to speak by phone to President Vladimir Putin about Moscow’s seizure of three Ukrainian navy ships and their crews, but that Russia had refused.

Relations between Moscow and Kiev are strained over Russia’s capture of the ships in the Black Sea off the coast of Russian-annexed Crimea at the weekend.

“I can say that there was a request, but a conservation did not take place, so to speak,” Kremlin aide Yuri Ushakov told reporters on Wednesday.