'Threatens the safety of navigation': Russia nervously reacted to the approach of the Ukrainian ship to the Kerch Strait

While US President Joe Biden spoke on the phone with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, the Russian FSB said that a Ukrainian warship approached the Kerch Strait, thereby creating a "threat to the safety of navigation." What happened and how they reacted to it in Russia, the newspaper said. with the BBC.

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As soon as the conversation between the two presidents ended, the FSB announced that the Donbass ship was on a return course.

The official press release of the FSB of Russia that the floating workshop of the Soviet fleet was built in 1969, which has been called Donbass since 2001 and is part of the Ukrainian Navy, is approaching the Kerch Strait and does not respond to inquiries, appeared two days after the negotiations Vladimir Putin and Joe Biden and almost simultaneously with Biden's call to the President of Ukraine Zelensky, in which the US President recounted his conversation with his Russian counterpart to him.

The FSB of Russia claims that the Donbass ship left the port of Mariupol on the morning of December 9 and moved in the direction of the Kerch Strait.

The secret service claims that at 13:45 the FSB coast guard ship warned the Ukrainian sailors about the need to comply with Russian legislation by submitting an application for passage through the strait, to which the response was received that the Donbass did not plan to follow through the Kerch Strait.

When the Ukrainian vessel was 18 nautical miles (33,3 kilometers) from the Kerch Strait and, according to the Russian FSB, stopped responding to inquiries and requests to change course, the Russian secret service issued a press release. He caused a stir among Russian officials.

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So, the editor-in-chief of Russia Today, Margarita Simonyan, commented on what was happening: “Did it start, or what? Don't let me down, mother. " And TV presenter Vladimir Soloviev began an unscheduled stream, where he discussed with the guests the scenarios of the armed conflict between Russia and Ukraine.

After it became known that the ship had turned around, Simonyan wrote "Disperse", accompanying the inscription with a sad smile.

The situation was reminiscent of the event of 2018. Then the Russian border guards seized with the use of weapons in the Kerch Strait three ships of the Ukrainian Navy "Berdyansk", "Nikopol" and "Yany Kapu" and 24 members of their crews, citing the fact that these ships allegedly invaded the territorial waters of Russia.

In this case, at the moment still in force the Treaty of Friendship, Cooperation and Partnership between Russia and Ukraine, signed in 1997, Boris Yeltsin and Leonid Kravchuk, which clearly stipulated the right to free Ukrainian sailors to go in this area.

The "big treaty of friendship", as it was called in the media, expired only in April 2019, but still on the Kremlin's website you can find the "Treaty between the Russian Federation and Ukraine on cooperation in the use of the Sea of ​​Azov and the Kerch Strait", signed in 2003 year.

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Article 2 of that document states: "Commercial ships and warships and other government vessels flying the flag of the Russian Federation or Ukraine, exploited for commercial purposes, use in the Azov Sea and Kerch Strait freedom of navigation." The effect of this treaty did not stop.

Literally ten minutes after the end of the telephone conversation between Biden and Zelensky, the Russian FSB issued a new press release: “The Donbas ship lay on the course opposite from the Kerch Strait, does not respond to inquiries. The actions of the Ukrainian ship's crew are regarded as provocative and endangering the safety of navigation. "

Ukrainian Defense Minister Alexei Reznikov called these reports of a provocation near the Kerch Strait as Russian information stuffing.

“It is very strange that the Russian special services saw a threat from a search and rescue vessel - a vessel without weapons, while FSB ships are constantly located at a distance of 2 kilometers from Mariupol and Berdyansk,” said the head of the Ukrainian Ministry of Defense. “At the same time, Russian ships are armed with 30 mm cannons.”

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