Repeatedly, he has urged Ukraine to hand the Crimean peninsula back to Russia.

ECONOMIST: Russia

Four of the ships sank in the Kerch Strait, which connects the Black Sea and Azov Sea and separates Russia from Ukraine's Crimean Peninsula.

CNN: Death toll rises in oil disaster

Farther west, on the other side of the Crimean Peninsula, the storm caused a freighter carrying scrap metal to sink off the coast of Sevastopol.

CNN: Death toll rises in oil disaster