Photo: Evgeny Semenov
Senator Alexei Pushkov laughed at his Telegram channel, words of the head of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Ukraine Dmitry Kuleba about the desire to expel Russia “into the corner of the legal circle” at the court in The Hague. We are talking about considering the international arbitration of Kiev's claim against Moscow for the incident in the Kerch Strait three years ago.
The Russian politician pointed out that NATO countries also stopped commenting on this situation. Because everyone had long since discovered that “it was Ukraine that disrupted Russia's territorial waters in the Kerch Strait.”
Pushkov recalled that no one was impressed by Kiev's arguments in Europe. This was the case with the gas supply agreement between Hungary and Gazprom. After Russia threatened to withdraw from the Council of Europe, PACE immediately became deaf to Ukrainian arguments. The Russian senator therefore doubts that the “iron logic of legal arguments” mentioned by Kuleba will help in The Hague.
The Russian Foreign Ministry previously stated that the incident in the Kerch Strait does not fall under the jurisdiction of the International Arbitration Court. The same position was expressed by the Russian representative in The Hague. The judges decided to decide if they could actually hear the case.
As a reminder, two boats and a tug of the Ukrainian Navy broke the Russian border on November 25, 2018 and headed from the Black Sea to the Kerch Strait. They performed dangerous maneuvers, did not respect the legitimate requirements of the authorities. As a result, the ships and crews were detained. A year later, Ukrainian troops were transferred to Kiev as part of an agreement on the simultaneous release of detainees and convicts.
At the same time, the detained ships were returned. However, the Ukrainian navy accused the Russian authorities of destroying the floating vessel. The FSB released a video from the courts emphasizing that everything was fine with them, and that even the plumbing work was in good condition at the time of their return.