DISINFO: HMS Defender’s violation of Russian territorial waters was a provocation by the UK and the US
SUMMARY
The HMS Defender’s violation of Russian territorial waters was a planned provocation by the UK and the US.
RESPONSE
Recurrent pro-Kremlin disinformation narratives about the HMS Defender incident. The article’s message is also consistent with pro-Kremlin narratives about the status of Crimea and about the US provoking Russia.
It is not true that the UK and US provoked Russia with the transit of the British ship HMS Defender through the Black Sea towards Georgia. There is no evidence to support the claim that this was a planned provocation. The Black Sea transit of the HMS Defender on the Odesa to Georgia route is within full legal maritime law guaranteed as the “right of innocent passage” by the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS), to which both the UK and Russia are parties.
The British Minister of Defence officially stated that:
The Royal Navy ship is conducting innocent passage through Ukrainian territorial waters in accordance with international law.
According to the UNCLOS articles, the HMS Defender's crossing, as well as being in line with one of the most commonly used routes in the Black Sea, is legitimately within the terms of innocent passage through the waters off the Crimean peninsula and there has been no report, record or clear evidence of any provocative or aggressive approach from the UK ship to occupied Crimea.
The allegation that the HMS violated Russian territorial waters is a manipulation of the issue of Crimea. The HMS Defender transited 12 miles offshore in the waters of Crimea, a territory militarily occupied and forcibly annexed by Russia in 2014 in a referendum that was not recognised by the UN, nor the EU or the UK or any international body.
Innocent passage of the HMS Defender through the waters off Cape Fiolent on the Southern tip of Crimea is allowed under international law: Russia's accusation is based on the assumption that its self-asserted right over Crimean territory is recognised, but neither Ukraine nor the international community currently recognises Crimea as Russian territory. Russia's illegitimate control over the territories of the Crimean peninsula has manifestly extended to the Kerch Strait and the Sea of Azov, where military incidents have occurred.
Read more about the Kerch Strait issue here and here, while a more in-depth look at Russia's expansion into the Sea of Azov can be read here.
Read similar cases claiming that with the support of the US, the UK was ready to create a casus belli in the Black Sea, that UK ship HMS Defender violated Russian territorial waters in Crimea and that following the results of the referendum, Crimea - peacefully and legitimately - became part of Russia