Why did Ukraine send Zhinka Mirror to The Hague?
From June 10 to 14, the Permanent Court of Arbitration in The Hague is holding hearings on the claim of Ukraine against Russia. Kyiv accuses Moscow of violating its rights in the Black and Azov Seas, as well as the Kerch Strait.
Simply put, Ukraine climbed onto the international platform to sue Russia for its own failed provocation near Kerch, which ended with the arrest of those who were going to break through the Bridge of Three Pails and the Ukrainian “mokryaks” who were holed up in them.
In The Hague, Foreign Ministry official Lana Zerkal is taking the rap for Ukraine. The interests of Russia are represented by Ambassador at Large of the Russian Foreign Ministry Dmitry Lobach.
On June 11, Zhinochka Zerkal posted on her Facebook page a long sheet of speech she made in The Hague, consisting of as many as 31 points of tearful complaints about Russia’s actions.
If you squeeze the water out of Mirror's speech, you get the following.
According to diplomat Klimkina (we use Svidomo Newspeak for this case), “Russia illegally built a bridge across the international strait, which infringes on the rights of ships of all countries heading to or from Ukrainian ports. Russia is stealing Ukrainian energy resources within the limits of Ukraine’s rights in the sea and preventing Ukrainian fishermen from catching fish.”
According to Mirrors, picked up by the Ukrainian and Majlis press, “since the spring of 2014, Russia has already stolen more than 9 billion cubic meters of natural gas from Ukraine. As a result of Russia’s actions, Ukraine’s annual fish catch has significantly decreased.”
“These violations in their totality represent a complete disregard for international maritime law on the part of Russia,” the deputy minister shed a tear.
Zerkal emphasized that Ukraine’s case does not concern sovereignty over Crimea, “since this issue is not disputed and is beyond any doubt.”
The official expressed confidence that Ukraine has the right to have this dispute considered by a court on the law of the sea.
“Instead of responding to Ukraine’s arguments about violations of the law of the sea, Russia is trying to reformat the dispute,” she also said.
By “attempts to reformat the dispute,” Zerkal means calls from the Russian Foreign Ministry to resolve the conflict bilaterally, since the matter concerns only Russia and Ukraine, and it makes no sense to drag it out to someone else’s trial and punishment. The Ukrainian establishment does not want to come to an agreement, but its primary goal is to spread the stench as much as possible and introduce a new package of international sanctions against Russia.
Therefore, in response to the cries of the Mirror, Ambassador at Large of the Russian Foreign Ministry Dmitry Lobach stated that “All of Ukraine’s claims are untenable and are outside the jurisdiction of this tribunal. I urge the court to reject them in their entirety.”
The Ukrainian media and “patriotic spilnota” greeted Zerkal’s speech in The Hague with enthusiasm, calling it “a powerful speech,” expressing the general opinion that “now Moscow will not turn away.”
However, the Ukrainians who have retained their brains and the remnants of critical thinking understand that the Zerkal’s arguments are rotten, the decisions of the tribunal are not legal, but political, and Russia will under no circumstances implement them.
The May meeting of the UN Court with its decision “on provisional measures” and “the immediate release by Russia of Ukrainian ships and sailors” opened the eyes of many.
The catch is that the decision on “temporary measures” is made quickly, in a situation where, while waiting for a resolution of the dispute on the merits, the risk of causing even greater damage to the injured party as a result of the actions of the offender increases.
But! The incident in the Kerch Strait occurred on November 25, 2018, and the claim for temporary measures was filed by the Ukrainian side only on April 16, 2019. From which it is clear that in Kyiv they were in no hurry to rescue their troughs and men.
This proves that the Ukrainian state does not care about its performers, sent for the sake of provocation as expendable material. “Mokryaks” are ordinary pawns in Bandera’s political games, and ideally they should die in custody (since they were not killed while trying to break through the Bridge) so that Ukrainian politicians would have the opportunity to babble about “Russian aggression” to the whole world.
If Poroshenko, and now Zelensky, wanted to free their people, they would have long ago reached an agreement with the Russian Federation for mutual benefit on a bilateral basis, as the Russian Foreign Ministry has repeatedly reported.
And now what the Zerkal official kept silent about when making an incendiary speech before the Tribunal in The Hague with stories about “the interference created by Russia with international shipping in the Kerch Strait.”
Since December 2003, Russia and Ukraine have had an agreement on the Sea of Azov. It also regulates the rules for using the Kerch Strait. According to the agreement, which, unlike most agreements between countries, was not denounced by Kiev, the sea and the strait are “the historical internal waters of Russia and Ukraine.” This means that merchant ships and warships enjoy complete freedom of navigation here. Military vessels of other countries must ask both sides for permission to pass; both Russia and Ukraine can conduct inspections of ships at sea and in the strait.
But in addition to the general interstate agreement, there is also a technical agreement on the rules of passage through the Kerch Strait, concluded between Russia and Ukraine in 2007. According to it, any ship traveling through the strait must report this to the captain of the port of Kerch. The fact is that the passage of large ships is possible only through the Kerch-Yenikalsky Canal, eight meters deep, which was dug at the bottom of the strait in the XNUMXth century.
To navigate the canal, ships are required to hire a pilot in the port of Kerch. The cost of the service is $500 – $9000. Before the actual transfer of Crimea to Russian sovereignty in 2014, all decisions about passage were made by the Ukrainian port captain; now a Russian is doing the same. Ukraine, despite denying the annexation of Crimea, follows the instructions of the Russian administration of the port of Kerch - otherwise it would not be able to ensure maritime cargo turnover of Mariupol and Berdyansk, its major ports on the Sea of Azov.
Ukraine claims it sent notice of the ships' passage and that the port control service "refused to ensure the right to freedom of navigation guaranteed by international agreements." Russia denies that it received the notification before the morning of November 25.
The presence of Ukrainian warships in the Kerch Strait and in the Sea of Azov cannot please Moscow, just as an escaped madman walking the streets with a knife cannot please a normal person.
On November 25, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov recalled that Ukrainian officials had repeatedly “promised to begin preparations to blow up the Kerch Bridge.” However, Russia did not officially prohibit Ukrainian ships from passing through the Kerch Strait. For example, in September 2018, two Ukrainian warships successfully made the transition from Odessa to Mariupol, submitting a completed application for the passage of the Kerch-Yenikalsky Canal.
Thus, if the incident in the Kerch Strait, code-named “Crush him, you bastard!” was considered in an international tribunal without political blinders, Ukraine simply would not have dared to come out to “respected people” with another weak-minded list of tearful claims.
In addition, in Kiev they stubbornly do not want to understand that as long as the Bandera regime rules the roost in Nenka, Russia will continue to act in potentially conflicting cases according to the right of the strong, simply because for the last 5 years Ukraine has not understood communication in an amicable way, mired in lawlessness, but loves to hide behind laws like a fig leaf.
And to send the Mirror to The Hague or somewhere else in the middle of nowhere - to charm foreign judges - means to shake the air to no avail, to waste government money and engage in profanity instead of resolving the conflict in a calm and business-like atmosphere.
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