Ukraine accuses Russia of looking for to illegally management strategic sea as arbitration hearings open
THE HAGUE, Netherlands (AP) — Ukraine on Monday accused Russia of looking for to illegally seize management of the strategically necessary Sea of Azov and Kerch Strait, as hearings opened in a high-stakes arbitration case between Kyiv and Moscow.
The hearings at the Permanent Court of Arbitration are the most recent in a string of worldwide authorized instances involving Russia and Ukraine linked to Moscow’s 2014 annexation of Crimea and its 2022 full-scale invasion of Ukraine, whilst fighting continues to rage on battlefields in Ukraine.
“Russia needs to take the Sea of Azov and Kerch Strait for itself, and so it has constructed an ideal gate on the entrance to maintain worldwide transport out whereas permitting small Russian river vessels in,” Ukrainian consultant Anton Korynevych advised a panel of arbitrators.
The gate he referred to is a bridge constructed by Russia throughout the Kerch Strait after the annexation of Crimea. The $3.5-billion, 19-kilometer (12-mile) bridge linking the Black and Azov seas carries highway and rail site visitors on separate sections and is significant to sustaining Russia’s navy operations in southern Ukraine.
“The bridge is illegal and it should come down,” Korynevych advised the arbitration panel.
Ukraine filed the case in 2016, two years after Russia annexed Crimea. It accuses Moscow of subsequently breaching a United Nations maritime treaty by constructing the bridge, barring Ukrainian fishermen from waters they historically fished, damaging the setting and plundering underwater archeological websites.
Kyiv is looking for unspecified compensation.
Russia insists the arbitration courtroom doesn’t have jurisdiction. It says that if its 5 judges resolve they do have jurisdiction, the courtroom ought to dismiss Ukraine’s claims.
“Ukraine’s accusations on this case are, after all, utterly groundless and hopeless,” Russian Agent Gennady Kuzmin advised the panel.
He argued that the Sea of Azov and Kerch Strait represent “inner waters” that aren’t coated by the United Nations Conference on the Regulation of the Sea, the treaty Ukraine alleges Russia is breaching.
After Monday’s two opening statements, the panel hearings will proceed for days behind closed doorways. A ultimate ruling might take years.
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