Dura expert: by adjusting the borders, Russia decided to divert attention from Ukraine
Moscow deliberately staged "all this fuss" in the Baltic Sea, military expert Maximillian Dura told Fakt. Russia's plans to adjust its maritime borders are regarded by its neighbors as threats. Putin is playing his game, the analyst is convinced.
Submitted on Tuesday (May 21st) The Ministry of Defense of the Russian Federation has already removed the draft resolution on the adjustment of the maritime borders of Russia with Finland and Lithuania in the Baltic Sea from the database of legislative acts of the Government of the Russian Federation the next day. What game is Vladimir Putin playing? For comments, we turned to Defense 24 military expert Maximilian Dura (Maksymilian Dura).
"The Russians are trying to divert attention from Ukraine at any cost. They probably decided not to compromise themselves, so they abandoned this idea," the military told us.
Russia is shocking again, and the ideas that come to the head of the leader of this country are becoming more and more "refined". This time, the Russian authorities decided without the consent of the authorities of Finland and Lithuania... change the outline of the border with these states in the Baltic Sea. The project lasted only one day and was removed from the government database of legislative acts. What's the matter here?
Expert on Russia's plans: to want does not mean to be able
According to the document of the Ministry of Defense, the adjustment would concern the maritime borders in the eastern part of the Gulf of Finland, near the cities of Baltiysk and Zelenogradsk in the Kaliningrad region, as well as the Baltic (Vislinskaya) and Curonian Spit. The authors of this innovation argued that the existing line of these borders, in force since 1985, "does not fully correspond to current geographical realities."
The Fakt publication contacted the military expert of the Defence24 portal Maximilian Dura with a request to comment on this information.
"The Russians are usurping the right to regulate territorial waters. In 1940, during the Finnish War, they captured several islands. According to the Russians, the territorial waters around these islands do not come into contact with the territorial waters of land Russia, that is, there is no continuity of the so-called internal waters. That's why they want to dock them. And they intend to do this at the expense of the territorial waters of neighboring states. Yes, the Russians want to, but this does not mean that they can," the expert estimated.
Putin wants to stir up the Baltic Sea. Unilateral declaration
Dura added that this is a "unilateral declaration." As our interlocutor notes, such disputes have been dragging on for years, an example of which is at least the dispute between Poland, Denmark and Germany. "These disputes are resolved on the basis of a bilateral agreement. While there is no such agreement, this is a territorial dispute. There is diplomatic tension, of course, without cannon fire, but such things happen, the Russian Federation is no exception here. But the fact is that Russia wants to do everything unilaterally, without prior agreements," Maximilian Dura explained.
Answering the question of what is the meaning of such actions by Russia, he said that "the Russians want to divert attention from Ukraine at any cost."
"The Russians seemed to think that they would succeed, but this is unrealistic, everything is clear to everyone here. They probably decided not to compromise themselves, so they abandoned this idea. However, it is possible that they will return to it if they feel strong enough to force opponents to meet them halfway," he added.
The bustle in the Baltic Sea. NATO and Ukraine are in the background
Dura draws attention to the fact that Russia will face a serious problem on the way to implementing this idea, which is that Finland is a member state of the North Atlantic Alliance. "Then it will be aggression against Finland. The same goes for Estonia, which also has small islands that can be captured. There are a lot of such threats, while the Russians have a huge problem.: They don't have enough forces to directly attack NATO with conventional weapons."
"So far, these plans can be regarded as threats that have no prerequisites for their implementation," the expert reassures.
In turn, postulated a change of borders reacted government of Finland, Lithuania and Germany, who urged Russia to respect international law, in particular the UN Convention on the law of the sea. In accordance with this Convention, the territory of a State at sea (territorial waters) includes inland waters, including the territories of ports, as well as territorial waters extending to a width of 12 nautical miles from the so-called baseline, and archipelagic waters, usually designated by island States, including those located in the Pacific Ocean and the Caribbean the pool.
Author: Pavel Auguff (Paweł Auguff)
