MOSCOW, June 7. /TASS/. Russia’s upper house of parliament, the Federation Council, approved a bill denouncing the Russian-Ukrainian treaty on cooperation in the use of the Sea of Azov and the Kerch Strait at its plenary session on Wednesday.
The document was introduced to the State Duma by Russian President Vladimir Putin on May 24. The lower house of the Russian parliament denounced the treaty at the June 1 plenary session.
According to the explanatory note to the bill, a fundamentally new situation emerged when the Donetsk People’s Republic (DPR) and the Zaporozhye and Kherson regions joined Russia because, now, the coasts of the Sea of Azov and the Kerch Strait come under the sole jurisdiction of the Russian Federation. "Given that Ukraine lost its status as a littoral state with respect to these bodies of water, it thus became necessary to terminate the treaty," the accompanying note emphasized.
The treaty between Russia and Ukraine was signed in Kerch on December 24, 2003. The document noted the importance of the Sea of Azov and the Kerch Strait for the economic development of both countries as well as the necessity of preserving the Azov-Kerch basin as an integral economic and natural system. Earlier in February, the Ukrainian parliament, or Verkhovna Rada, formally denounced all treaties with Russia on cooperation in the Sea of Azov.