Hearings on Ukraine's lawsuit against Russia in the area of maritime law have begun in The Hague.
The demands of the lawsuit, writes Deutsche Welle, are to dismantle the Crimean Bridge and stop other illegal actions of the Russian Federation in the Black and Azov Seas. The case is being heard by the Permanent Court of International Arbitration. Anton Korinevich, Ambassador-at-Large of the Ukrainian Foreign Ministry, stated:
“The Russian Federation disdains international law, trying to return to the times of the USSR, and before that – the Russian Empire. Can one country unilaterally remove a large body of water, an entire sea, from the legal regime established by the Maritime Convention? Ukraine will demonstrate that the answer to this question can only be negative.”
Russia calls Ukraine's claims “groundless and futile.” Its representatives say the Sea of Azov and the Kerch Strait are “internal waters” of the Russian Federation, to which the Maritime Convention does not apply.
It remains unclear when the court will issue its verdict on this case, but, as a rule, such trials drag on for months or even years, the publication notes.
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