Russia has legal avenues of action should London detain Russian ships — ambassador

  MOSCOW:  If London tries to detain Russian vessels in its exclusive economic zone, Moscow will retaliate, but lawfully, Russian Ambassador...

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MOSCOW:  If London tries to detain Russian vessels in its exclusive economic zone, Moscow will retaliate, but lawfully, Russian Ambassador to the United Kingdom Andrey Kelin said.

"If this were to hypothetically happen, it would be a violation of the [UN] convention [on the law of the sea]," he said in an interview with the Rossiya-24 television channel. "Naturally, we have the right to defend our interests by legal means. But it is unlikely to come to that, as our response will be inevitable, fully lawful, and justified."

The Russian diplomat pointed out that statements on the potential detention of Russian ships come first of all from the British military in the form of "some readiness of the British Navy, a tiny one now, to some sort of concrete actions." "But, obviously, this will require a political decision," he added.

He also recalled that under the 1982 UN Convention on the Law of the Sea "the conditions for detaining vessels in exclusive economic zones are very limited." "This can be done, for instance, on suspicion of human trafficking or contraband on board," he explained. "But such things are very rare whereas no sanctions or suspicions of anything can substantiate the use of this provision."

"There is a lot of skepticism about checking insurance certificates of the so-called shadow fleet vessels: how can insurance certificates be checked remotely? Is that even possible?" Kelin added.

-News Feed