DISINFO: UK's HMS Defender illegally passed via Russian territorial waters
SUMMARY
If Boris Johnson decides that warships should pass through Russian territorial waters, then there have to be some concerns about Her Majesty the Queen's navy.
Propaganda was conducted, which was anti-Russian. That is, they said that the territorial waters are Ukrainian, that they are making a peaceful passage, they have the right to do so but this did not correspond to reality.
RESPONSE
Disinformation around the passage of HMS Defender, which was sailing from Odesa in southern Ukraine to Georgia on 23 June 2021. To get there, it passed south of the Crimea peninsula, which Russia annexed from Ukraine in 2014 in a move that has not been recognised internationally.
The claim in the article is not true. Russia claims that the Crimean peninsula and its waters are Russian. No international body recognises the so-called referendum in Crimea, not the UN, nor the EU. The European Union does not recognise and continues to strongly condemn this violation of international law, which remains a challenge to the international security order. This position is based on the UN Charter, which clearly states that the territory of a State cannot be acquired by another State resulting from the threat or use of force, as well as on the Helsinki Final Act in which the signatories declared their intention to respect the inviolability of frontiers and territorial integrity. UNGA Resolution 68/262, which condemned Russia's illegal actions in Ukraine, was supported by 100 United Nations member states. Only 10 states opposed it.
The UK says HMS Defender was passing through Ukrainian waters in a commonly used and internationally recognised transit route. A source told the BBC that the Defender was not there to pick a fight but to make a point - to assert its right to freedom of navigation in international waters. “Innocent passage” for foreign ships is the main qualification on a coastal state’s otherwise untrammelled sovereignty over its territorial sea of 12 nautical miles. It is stipulated in Part II of the 1982 United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS).
Sea lanes off southwestern Crimea were already included in the 2013 edition of the Ships’ Routing publication of the International Maritime Organization (the UN specialised agency for shipping). The current (2019) edition is behind a paywall, but it would not have been in Russia’s interest to alter the lanes since then, as that would invite the question of whether it has lawfully acquired territorial title to Crimea, answered resoundingly in the negative by UN General Assembly Resolution 68/262.
So far, whilst it has made many claims in the media that the "dangerous actions" of the UK navy ship entering its waters were a "gross violation" of the UN Convention's sea laws, Russia has not submitted any official request to the UN for an investigation into the UK's "illegal" actions.
See more disinformation cases on Crimea, as well as the Kerch Strait incident.