Update from 22/05/2024, 21:00 (see below)
As several Russian media reported on the afternoon of 21 May, including TASS and Moscow Times, Russia intends to change its maritime borders. And cancels all documents 24 hours later.
It is said that Russia intends to declare part of the waters in the eastern Gulf of Finland and areas near the cities of Baltiysk and Zelenogradsk in the Kaliningrad region as its internal waters. To this end, Russia has changed the geographical coordinates that define the baselines from which the width of the Russian territorial sea and the adjacent zone along the coast and islands is measured. This involves the area of the islands of Yagry, Sommers, Hogland, Rodsher, Maly Tyuters, Vigrund and the mouth of the Narva River on the border with Finland. On the border with Lithuania, the Curonian Spit in the Gulf of Gdansk, the area around Cape Taran, the cape south of Cape Taran and the Baltic Spit are under Russian "revision". If approved, the change to the maritime borders will come into force in January 2025.
The Ministry of Defence proposes to partially "invalidate" the 40-year-old decree of the Council of Ministers of the Soviet Union on the regulation of borders in the Baltic Sea, in particular the "Baltic Sea" section. Finnish and Lithuanian statements have not yet been made.
The move is justified by the fact that the border demarcation dating from the USSR era no longer reflects the current situation in the Russian Federation, meaning that parts of the territory do not lie on Russian territory.
Source: RND, Euromaidan
Update from 22.05.2024, 21:00 h
After the Russian Ministry of Defence's draft law in question, with its seemingly flimsy justification, appeared on the government portal dealing with legal issues on Tuesday, politically and diplomatically responsible bodies in the Baltic states began to stir. Only Finland was conspicuously reticent due to the absence of an official bilateral exchange of notes.
On Wednesday morning, TASS, Interfax and RIA very quickly followed up with a denial of Russia's intention to change the borders in the Baltic Sea area, which, however, only referred to an "unnamed diplomatic-military source": "There were and are no plans to change the width of the territorial waters, the economic zone, the continental shelf off the mainland, or the lines of the Russian border in the Baltic Sea." The draft law was removed from the portal later that day.
If a plausible interpretation of the process was already difficult at the beginning - it certainly won't get any easier! But - something rings a bell: "Nobody has the intention of building a wall!" Chairman of the State Council Walter Ulbricht, 15 June 1961, East Berlin, press conference on the peace treaty.
Source: politico.eu
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