Posted on 06/30/2021 6:05:32 AM PDT by tlozo
Russian President Vladimir Putin said Wednesday that a U.S. reconnaissance aircraft was operating in sync with a British destroyer during last week's Black Sea incident in what he described as a "provocation" to test Moscow's response.
Moscow said one of its warships fired warning shots and a warplane dropped bombs in the path of British destroyer Defender on June 23 to force it out of an area near the Crimean Peninsula, which Russia annexed in 2014. Britain denied that account, insisted its ship wasn't fired upon and said it was sailing in Ukrainian waters.
Asked if the incident could have triggered World War III, Putin said that it was hardly possible even if Russia had sunk the British warship because Western powers knew they couldn't emerge as winners in a global conflict...
(Excerpt) Read more at kob.com ...
Warmongers gonna Warmonger.
Assume you meant Biden and typo became “Putin”??
Sometimes, there is more than one evil P_S in the world. ;)
What the Hell are we doing in the Black Sea anyway?
Right, and now lets talk about all the Russian aircraft actually violating US and Canadian airspace.
There’s a tiny contingent in this country that bears a white-hot hatred for Russia and is doing everything inits power to ignite a war.If this provocation keeps up, they may get their wish.
Was there any?
Biden and Putin beat chests because both have sagging poll numbers.
Question is, who started it?
In the summer of 1981 the ship I was on sailed through an area off crimea in a “freedom of the seas” exercise. I was told by our sonar techs that they heard splashes and explosions from soviet gun range nearby. We had a constant escort of soviet guided missile frigates and they would light us up with their fire-control radars. They filled the ether with their search radars to intimidate us; I had never seen so many big net, puff-ball and downbeat radar sigs. I thought it was pretty interesting.
Same thing we are doing in the South China Sea and Strait of Hormuz. Protecting the right of "Innocent Passage".
Read Article 19 UNCLOS for your education.
The ‘innocent passage’ violates at least two paragraphs of it, making it everything but.
Nonsense.
The 1989 USA-USSR Joint Statement on the Uniform Interpretation of Rules of International Law Governing Innocent Passage confirms that:
"All ships, including warships …, enjoy the right of innocent passage through the territorial sea in accordance with international law, for which neither prior notification nor authorization is required."
“ What the Hell are we doing in the Black Sea anyway?”
************
The incident occurred in international waters. Doesn’t matter why we were there.
Article 19 UNCLOS is exactly the ‘international law’ your quote is saying about. The passage clearly violates it.
Only according to you. Maritime legal experts agree, UK was within its rights.
"Under Article 17 of UNCLOS, innocent passage is the right to proceed through another country’s territorial waters without interference. Article 18 defines “passage” as navigation through the territorial sea of a coastal state without calling into one of its ports – as HMS Defender was doing – or to or from the internal waters of a state. It must be “continuous and expeditious,” without stopping and anchoring, except in so far as is incidental to ordinary navigation, or because of force majeure or distress, or in order to render assistance to another vessel in distress.
Nothing suggests that HMS Defender’s passage was anything but continuous and expeditious. As for what is “innocent,” UNCLOS Article 19 equates this with not being prejudicial to the peace, good order and security of the coastal state, and contains an exhaustive list of prejudicial acts, including use or threat of force, weapons exercises, defense- or security-related information-gathering, propaganda, smuggling of goods or people, launching, landing or taking on board aircraft or military devices, fishing, wilfully polluting and a few others.
All of this points to the UK being within its rights to send its ship through the territorial waters off the Crimean peninsula. Notably, there is no requirement that innocent passage must be done for a particular purpose, nor does it need justification in terms of the directness of the route from port of origin to destination (although a glance at the map shows that passing close to Crimea is indeed the shortest way from Odessa to any Georgian port).
https://maritime-executive.com/editorials/what-does-the-law-of-the-sea-say-about-the-hms-defender-incident
Read Article 19 UNCLOS (Quote):
2. Passage of a foreign ship shall be considered to be prejudicial to the peace, good order or security of the coastal State if in the territorial sea it engages in any of the following activities:
(a) any threat or use of force against the sovereignty, territorial integrity or political independence of the coastal State, or in any other manner in violation of the principles of international law embodied in the Charter of the United Nations;
(b) any exercise or practice with weapons of any kind;
(c) any act aimed at collecting information to the prejudice of the defence or security of the coastal State;
(d) any act of propaganda aimed at affecting the defence or security of the coastal State;
(e) the launching, landing or taking on board of any aircraft;
(f) the launching, landing or taking on board of any military device;
(g) the loading or unloading of any commodity, currency or person contrary to the customs, fiscal, immigration or sanitary laws and regulations of the coastal State;
(h) any act of wilful and serious pollution contrary to this Convention;
(i) any fishing activities;
(j) the carrying out of research or survey activities;
(k) any act aimed at interfering with any systems of communication or any other facilities or installations of the coastal State;
(l) any other activity not having a direct bearing on passage.
What about a, b, c, and d?
Did you see a BBC report from ship?
Interestingly Russia itself is not bringing up how HMS Defender specifically violated the right to innocent passage.
So far there has been no accusation from Russia that HMS Defender was engaged in any of the acts that by UNCLOS Article 19 render passage non-innocent, which would have triggered Article 25 permitting the coastal state to take the necessary steps in its territorial sea to prevent passage which is not innocent. It seems to have been its mere presence that Russia found objectionable, possibly because HMS Defender was too close for comfort to the sensitive naval port of Sevastopol.
https://theconversation.com/hms-defender-incident-what-the-law-of-the-sea-says-163389
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