Russia has withdrawn from the agreement with Ukraine on measures to ensure the safety of navigation in the Sea of Azov and the Kerch Strait. The order to this effect, signed by Russian Prime Minister Mikhail Mishustin, appeared the day before on the official legal information portal.
"In accordance with paragraph 1 of Article 37 of the Federal Law 'On International Treaties of the Russian Federation,' the agreement between the government of the Russian Federation and the Cabinet of Ministers of Ukraine on measures to ensure the safety of navigation in the Sea of Azov and the Kerch Strait, signed in Moscow on March 20, 2012, is hereby terminated," the document states.
The authorities also instructed the Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs to notify the Ukrainian side of the decision.
This concerns the agreement signed by Russia and Ukraine in 2012. The parties were committed, among other things, to exchanging data from automatic identification systems for monitoring navigation in the region.
In June 2023, Russian President Vladimir Putin signed a law denouncing the cooperation agreement with Ukraine regarding the use of the Sea of Azov and the Kerch Strait, originally signed on December 24, 2003. As stated in the explanatory note to the document, the shores of the Sea of Azov and the Kerch Strait "are now exclusively part of Russia due to the incorporation of Donetsk, Zaporizhzhia, and Kherson regions into Russia," and Ukraine, after the armed occupation of its territories, "has lost its status as a coastal state in relation to them."
