The provocative maneuver is just the latest attempt by Washington to cast Russia as a rogue state that wantonly violates international law, and it comes on the heels of a similar action in the Taiwan Strait on Friday.
The US Navy announced on Tuesday that one of its warships, the USS John S. McCain, had performed a freedom of navigation operation (FONOP) just miles from Russia’s eastern port city of Vladivostok, where the Russian Pacific Fleet is headquartered.
US Warship Deterred
According to the US Seventh Fleet, the Arleigh Burke-class destroyer was upholding “the rights, freedoms, and lawful uses of the sea recognized in international law by challenging Russia’s excessive maritime claims.”
The Arleigh Burke-class guided-missile destroyer USS John S. McCain (DDG 56) transits through Peter the Great Bay while conducting routine underway operations. McCain is forward-deployed to the U.S. 7th Fleet area of operations in support of security and stability in the Indo-Pacific region
The news release notes that in 1984, the Soviet Council of Ministers declared a system of straight baselines for parts of its eastern coast, including those that face the Pacific Ocean, Bering Sea, Sea of Okhotsk and, like Peter the Great Gulf, the Sea of Japan. Some of them Washington has decided to dispute.
“By drawing this closing line, the USSR attempted to claim more internal waters – and territorial sea farther from shore – than it is entitled to claim under international law. Russia has continued the USSR claim,” the Navy continued. “By conducting this operation, the United States demonstrated that these waters are not Russia’s territorial sea and that the United States does not acquiesce in Russia’s claim that Peter the Great is a ‘historic bay’ under international law.”
The Russian Ministry of Defense has released footage of the incident via Krasnaya Zvezda, the military’s news outlet. The film is shot from the deck of the Udaloy-class frigate Admiral Vinogradov, which responded to the USS McCain’s incursion.
According to the Ministry of Defense, the McCain passed two kilometers beyond the line of Russia’s claimed maritime borders.
Another US destroyer, the USS Barry, performed its own FONOP through the Taiwan Strait on November 20, according to the US Pacific Fleet. The maneuver is just one of several this year intended to flout Chinese claims of sovereignty over the autonomous island of Taiwan, which enjoys informal US support.
Pentagon Calls Russia ‘Revitalized Malign Actor’
It’s unclear what great material gain Washington expects to make by rejecting this claim and demonstrating it can sail a US warship within a few dozen miles of a major Russian city. However, the news release notes the US sees itself as upholding international law: in recent years Washington has spared no effort to cast Russia and several other nations as “revisionist” powers who seek to upend the post-Cold War order crafted by the US when it was the world’s sole superpower.
A 1987 document by the US State Department on the Soviet border changes notes that the US has disputed Moscow’s claim that Peter the Great Gulf is a “historical body of water” since 1957.
A cropped image from a 1987 US State Department document showing the Soviet Union’s straight baselines recently implemented along its eastern coast. Peter the Great Gulf (Zaliv Petra Velikogo) is at bottom left.
According to the 1982 United Nations Convention on the Law of Sea, nations are allowed to employ straight baselines “in localities where the coastline is deeply indented or cut into,” among several other situations.
According to the State Department, the line across Peter the Great Bay does not meet any of the UN’s requirements, but the department’s justifications for that position are subjective and facile, such as that the coastline is not indented enough.
Sourse: sputniknews.com
