Ukraine has accused Russia of violating maritime law in its attempts to gain singular control over the Kerch Strait, flanking the occupied Crimea.
Ukraine has accused Russia of violating maritime law in its efforts to impose solitary control over the Kerch Strait, flanking the occupied Crimea.
On Monday, both sides faced off at an international court in the Netherlands in a bid to stake claims over the strategic waterway that lies between mainland Russia and the annexed Crimean Peninsula.
This was Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine, and 31 months of war since saw the pair trading legal broadsides at each other at the Permanent Court of Arbitration in The Hague.
“Russia wants to take the Sea of Azov and Kerch Strait for itself,” Ukraine’s representative, Anton Korynevych, told arbitrators at the opening of the hearings.
He said Ukraine is coming to testify to Russia’s many infringements of international maritime law and to show that Russia is not in a position to disregard international law itself.
Kyiv initiated the case at the Hague-based International Tribunal for the Law of the Sea in 2016 when Moscow launched construction on the 19km (12-mile) Crimea Bridge connecting its mainland to the peninsula Ukraine lost two years ago.
The bridge is a crucial supply route for fuel, food, and other supplies to Crimea, whose port of Sevastopol has been the historic base of Russia’s Black Sea Fleet.
It has become a crucial supply route for Moscow’s forces fighting on the eastern front.
Kyiv, which started the assault on the bridge, wants it destroyed. Kyiv says the Russians built the bridge too low, which prevents international boats from passing through but allows smaller Russian ones to go through the strait linking the Sea of Azov to the Black Sea.
Russia’s Gennady Kuzmin dismissed Moscow’s interference with navigation and said the court has no right to judge in the case.
“All of Ukraine’s claims are groundless, exceed the competence of your jurisdiction, and should be dismissed in full,” Kuzmin said.
