Russia's Federation Council approves withdrawing from treaty with Ukraine on Sea of Azov, Kerch Strait

MOSCOW. June 7 (Interfax) - Russia's Federation Council voted on Wednesday to withdraw from the Russian-Ukrainian Treaty on Cooperation in Using the Sea of Azov and the Kerch Strait.

The treaty was signed in Kerch on December 24, 2003. Russia ratified it on April 22, 2004.

It sets out the procedure for joint Russian-Ukrainian activities in shipping, including its regulation and navigational and geographical support, fisheries, protection of the marine environment, environmental safety, and search and rescue operations in the Sea of Azov and the Kerch Strait.

"Following the entry of the Donetsk People's Republic, the Zaporozhye region and the Kherson region into the Russian Federation, Ukraine lost the status of a littoral state in the Azov-Kerch waters. The Sea of Azov has become an internal sea of the Russian Federation. The treaty thus lost its relevance, and we propose withdrawing from it," the Federation Council's Foreign Affairs Committee said in a comment on the denouncement bill.

The Verkhovnaya Rada of Ukraine adopted a bill on February 24, 2023, on withdrawing from the Ukrainian-Russian Treaty on Cooperation in Using the Sea of Azov and the Kerch Strait, which took effect on March 25, 2023, the document also says.