THE HAGUE, Netherlands (AP) — Ukraine accused Russia on Monday of attempting to illegally seize management of strategically necessary areas of the Sea of Azov and the Kerch Strait, as hearings opened in a high-stakes arbitration case between Kiev and Moscow.
The hearings at the Permanent Court of Arbitration They are the most recent in a sequence of worldwide authorized instances involving Russia and Ukraine linked to Moscow’s 2014 annexation of Crimea and its full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022, though the fighting continues to rage on the battlefields of Ukraine.
“Russia needs to take the Sea of Azov and the Kerch Strait for itself, and due to this fact has constructed a big gate on the entrance to stop worldwide transport from getting into, however permit small Russian river vessels to enter,” Ukrainian consultant Anton Korynevych informed an arbitration panel.
The gate he was referring 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 connecting the Black Sea and the Sea of Azov carries highway and rail site visitors on separate sections and is essential to supporting Russia’s army operations in southern Ukraine.
“The bridge is against the law and have to be torn down,” Korynevych informed the arbitration panel.
Ukraine filed the case in 2016, two years after Russia annexed Crimea. It accuses Moscow of subsequently violating a United Nations maritime treaty by constructing the bridge, blocking Ukrainian fishermen from conventional fishing waters, damaging the surroundings and plundering underwater archaeological websites.
Kiev is demanding unspecified compensation.
Russia insists the arbitration courtroom has no jurisdiction. It says that if its 5 judges resolve they do have jurisdiction, the courtroom ought to reject Ukraine’s claims.
“Ukraine’s accusations on this case are, in fact, fully unfounded and hopeless,” Russian agent Gennady Kuzmin informed the panel.
He argued that the Sea of Azov and the Kerch Strait represent “inside waters” that aren’t coated by the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea, the treaty that Ukraine claims Russia is violating.
After two opening statements Monday, the panel hearings will proceed for days behind closed doorways. A ultimate ruling might take years.
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