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Opinion
November 30, 2018 www.intellinews.com I Page 24
But none of this means Poroshenko is above manipulating the conflict for his personal political benefit. He remains after all a highly successful Ukrainian oligarch that became rich in one of
the most corrupt countries in Europe and was a member of the kleptocratic former president Viktor Yanukovych’s administration.
Safe passage
The Sea of Azov is not international waters (it’s too small to have a patch of shared water in the middle beyond the territorial waters that stretch 20km from a country’s beaches) and there is an international border between Russia and Ukraine that runs down the middle.
As the two countries have to co-exist in the sea, Ukraine has guaranteed right of passage through the sea to its ports in its territorial water in the northwest corner of the sea under an agreement signed with Russia in 2003.
The 2003 agreement is the key here. The Kerch straits are actually difficult to navigate, full
of shallows and rocks. The protocols of the agreement require ships to check in with the Russian port authorities at Kerch and take on a pilot to help them navigate the straits. As a result there are regularly traffic jams of ships queuing up in the waters on either side of the straits waiting to be allowed to pass.
This is the second time Ukraine has sent military ships through the straits this year, according
to reports. Some frigates passed the straits in September with no problems.
What went wrong this time, the Russian side claim, is that unlike in September the three ships at the weekend – two patrol boats and a tug – didn't hail Kerch port for permission and didn't respond to hails from the Russian coastguard when they approached Russian territorial water (on the Russian mainland side of the straits, rather than the disputed territorial waters on
the Crimean side of the straits). The Ukrainian ships continued to sail on a course that would
have taken them through the straits without permission from the Kerch coast guard.
The Russians claim that the Ukrainian ships entered Russia’s undisputed territorial waters on the eastern side of the straits and that is where the ramming incident took place. This point is now confused as there are multiple conflicting reports, some claiming the incident happened in international waters and others that it happened in Russia’s waters, but the navigation records can clear this up; because the passage is dangerous, ship locations are carefully tracked.
While the right of passage for Ukrainian shipping is guaranteed it is not automatic. Under the 2003 agreement the Russians supervise the passages and Ukraine is obliged to comply with the protocols, according to bne IntelliNews sources. This is to avoid ships without pilots running aground or collisions between shipping passing in and out of the Sea of Azov. No ships are allowed to simply steam through the straits on their own.
The result was the Russian ships intercepted the three Ukrainian ships and video clearly shows one of the Russian ships ramming the Ukrainian ship. The Ukrainian navy subsequently released audio of the captains of the Russian ships talking to each other by radio.
“[Russian Prime Minister Dmitry] Medvedev
is panicking,” one operator said on the audio, adding, “We should assault them. We have to destroy them,” and “It seems that the president is in control of all of that shit.”
The operators also discuss the arrival of 10 men with “incredible physical skills” within the hour, which corresponds to the arrival of Russian Special Operations, or Spetsnaz, troops who boarded and seized the Ukrainian ships.
However, none of this is inconsistent with stopping the Ukrainian ships if they were deemed by the Russian authorities to be trying to pass through the straits without sticking to the safe passage