Moscow has blocked the process of setting-up foreign military bases in the Sea of Azov after it legally became an inland sea of Russia, according to pro-Kremlin media.
Propaganda: The Sea of Azov belongs only to Russia after the annexation of some Ukrainian regions to the Russian Federation and Ukraine's withdrawal from a bilateral agreement
NEWS: “The Federation Council has approved the termination of the agreement with Ukraine on the joint use of the Sea of Azov and the Kerch Strait. In this sense, the Sea of Azov has become an internal sea of Russia.
The explanatory note of the meeting of the Federation Council reads that after the annexation of the Donetsk People's Republic, and the Zaporizhzhia and Kherson regions to Russia, the Sea of Azov became an internal sea of Russia, and Ukraine lost the status of a country with access to the coast.
“Ukraine has unilaterally withdrawn from the treaty [...]”, the document states. As part of the special military operation, the Russian army succeeded in taking control of all outlets to the Sea of Azov.
[…] Of course, thanks to the successful actions of the Russian military to turn the Sea of Azov into an internal sea of the Russian Federation, the Ukrainian plans to locate foreign military bases in this area have become impossible. If this initiative became a reality, an obvious danger for our country would have emerged.”
NARRATIVE: The Sea of Azov has become an internal sea of Russia to prevent the setting up of foreign military bases.
Reality: Ukraine has not given up its territories bordering the Sea of Azov and wants to recover them from Russia
WHY THE NARRATIVE IS FALSE: The annexation of some Ukrainian regions to Russia following the holding of fake referendums was not recognized by Ukraine and most of the world's states. The international community condemned both the war launched by Russia against Ukraine and the annexation of the regions of Kherson, Zaporizhzhia, Donetsk and Luhansk, partially seized by Russian forces. Also, the annexation of Crimea has been condemned countless times. The illegal occupation of these Ukrainian territories cannot be a legal basis for considering the Sea of Azov an internal sea.
To prove to the public that Russia's “special military operation” in Ukraine is a success, the pro-Kremlin press writes that the Sea of Azov has become a legally internal sea in the context of Ukraine's unilateral withdrawal from a bilateral treaty with Russia, signed in 2003. On December 19, 2022, the Kyiv Parliament denounced the cooperation agreement with Russia in the Sea of Azov , arguing that Moscow violated the norms of international law and militarily annexed some Ukrainian regions. Russian media presented the denunciation of this agreement as a recognition by Kyiv of Russia's right to use the Sea of Azov as an internal sea.
In reality, the denunciation of the agreement was motivated in Kyiv by the fact that Russia had turned into an enemy state, which militarized the Black and Azov seas and must liberate all the Ukrainian occupied territories. The Kyiv parliament did not recognize Russia's territorial annexations and launched a legal mechanism necessary in the context of the future liberation of the regions occupied by Moscow.
After the annexation of Crimea, Russia limited the access of Ukrainian ships to the Sea of Azov, despite the fact that according to international norms, 2/3 of the waters should be under Kyiv’s control. In 2016, Ukraine sued Russia at the International Court of Justice in the Hague, requesting the restoration of its access to the Sea of Azov.
The information in the Russian media about the blocking of the process of locating foreign military bases in the Sea of Azov is another invention of the pro-Kremlin propaganda. The question of setting up such bases in the Sea of Azov has never been raised. Moreover, to block such an initiative, should it had ever arisen, it was not necessary to occupy other Ukrainian territories because Russia was already controlling the Kerch Strait. At the same time, advisers to President Volodymyr Zelensky have repeatedly stated that Ukraine aims to recover Crimea this year in order to restore historical and political truth.
Veridica has dismantled a series of false narratives about Russia's successes in the war in Ukraine. The pro-Kremlin press wrote that a civil war is underway in Ukraine to restore Great Russia , while the “special military operation” is saving Russia from Western aggression. According to Russian propaganda, Moscow must mobilize to defeat NATO in the new war for the defense of the fatherland” . Also, the Russian press claims that Putin warned Ukraine 23 years ago that NATO would provoke a war.
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