Moscow Requests Urgent UN Security Council Meeting after Ukrainian Vessels Violated Russian Territorial Waters

UNITED NATIONS – Russia requested an urgent meeting of UN Security Council members at 11 a.m. on Monday (16.00 GMT) to discuss the situation in the Sea of Azov, Russia’s First Deputy Envoy to UN, Dmitry Polyanskiy, told reporters, according to Sputnik.

“In connection with the dangerous development of the situation in the Sea of Azov and the events that followed them, Russia requested an urgent convocation of an open meeting of the Security Council on the morning of November 26 under the agenda item ‘Maintenance of international peace and security,'” Polyanskiy said. The meeting is tentatively scheduled for 11 a.m. (19.00 Moscow time, 16.00 GMT), he added.

 On Sunday, three ships of the Ukrainian Navy, in violation of Articles 19 and 21 of the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea, crossed the Russian sea border, entered a temporarily closed area of Russian territorial waters, moving from the Black Sea toward the Kerch Strait, according to the Russian Federal Security Service (FSB), Sputnik said.

Another group of ships was heading for the Kerch Strait from the Azov Sea port of Berdyans’k. The Kerch Strait, which links Black and Azov seas, was closed by Russia on Sunday to civilian ships for security reasons. Later the same day, the FSB reported that the same three ships of the Ukrainian Navy — Berdyansk, Nikopol and Yany Kapu — had been detained after violating Russian state border. The Ukrainian ships did not react to legal demands of the ships accompanying them and made dangerous maneuvers, the FSB noted.

H.M