Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova says Russia has not yet received any notifications from Kyiv that Ukraine filed a lawsuit at the International Tribunal for the Law of the Sea (ITLOS), according to Russian news agency TASS.
”We`ve heard statements Ukraine has handed over to us a notification it is filing a lawsuit at the arbitration tribunal over Russia`s alleged violations of its obligations under the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea. We have not received such a notification yet,” Zakharova said at a news briefing on Thursday, September 15, TASS reported.
”Russia as a responsible state and a signatory to the Convention has diligently complied with its obligations under that international treaty. Naturally, the same applies to the maritime areas around the Crimean Peninsula.”
”One cannot but feel surprise over such interpretation of the status of the maritime areas around the peninsula. As a result of Crimea`s reunification with Russia, Ukraine is no longer a littoral state in relation to the maritime areas adjacent to Crimea and, consequently, has no corresponding rights to them,” Zakharova said.
Kyiv accuses Moscow of violating the 1982 UN Convention on the Law of the Sea. Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko on September 14 said he had instructed the Ukrainian Foreign Ministry to file a lawsuit against Russia and to notify Moscow by the end of the day.
Ukrainian Minister of Foreign Affairs Pavlo Klimkin said in mid-August that Ukraine had finished pretrial consultations with Russia regarding sovereign rights in waters around the temporarily occupied Crimea.
Klimkin announced later that international proceedings over Russia`s violation of Ukraine`s sovereign rights in the waters around the temporarily occupied Crimea would be launched in the coming weeks.
In July, Minister for Temporarily Occupied Territories and Internally Displaced Persons Vadym Chernysh said that gas extraction activity by Russia in Ukraine`s exclusive maritime zone in the Black Sea following the Crimean annexation would be the subject of lawsuits. The minister said they would also relate to the use of biological resources in the Black Sea.
Ukrainian naval guards constantly report about Russia`s violations of the international maritime law. Notably, drilling platforms and maintenance vessels sailing under the Russian flag are stationed near gas fields in Ukraine`s marine economic zone.
