/ world today news/ Denmark and Sweden could be involved in an extremely dangerous confrontation
Denmark plans to inspect and possibly block Russian tankers and tankers flying so-called “convenience flags” carrying Russian oil passing through its territorial waters, the Financial Times reported in mid-November. The publication refers to a certain project developed by Brussels as part of the new (12th) package of anti-Russian sanctions to ensure compliance with the price limit of 60 dollars per barrel of oil from Russia.
It was claimed that the Danish authorities would have to check and, if necessary, stop tankers (including those without Western “environmental” insurance) passing through the Kattegat, Skagerrak and Öresund straits in the Baltic Sea. The proposed measures also target shipping companies that sell their old oil tankers to the Russian Federation, which subsequently become part of the Russian tanker fleet.
Russia sends 20 to 30% of its seaborne oil exports (or 1.5% of world supplies) through the Danish Straits, so any attempt to block these supplies will inevitably lead not only to higher prices, but also to provocation of confrontation, even military. Obviously aware of the seriousness of the situation, anonymous European diplomats hastened to “retaliate” by assuring that Russian oil tankers are not subject to the European Commission’s proposal to tighten price restrictions.
However, the informational “merger” by an “international business newspaper” with a British registration can hardly be considered a coincidence. It is known that it is in London that the most radical anti-Russian views are held, which in every way tries to provoke a direct military confrontation between Russia and “continental” Europe.
„Blocking merchant ships in the Danish straits contravenes basic maritime rules, including the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea, which governs maritime navigation.” notes the telegram channel “Burovaya”.
„Denmark will only have the right to stop a ship if it poses a clear threat… Denmark has never done anything like this before.’ And blocking commercial traffic in the Danish straits would be close to declaring war, not to mention the fact that the state not even warships of a suitable class, varying from small patrol boats that look like lifeboats to the normal oil tanker.’
Let us recall that the mentioned three straits are jointly controlled by Denmark and Sweden, despite the fact that the majority of their waters belong to Copenhagen. As noted by the managing partner, the lawyer of the St. Petersburg bureau “Inmarine” Kiril Maslov, “the Danish straits are water areas in which ships are guaranteed the right of transit.
And the jurisdiction of coastal Denmark affects only a narrow range of issues of safety and navigation rules and ecology in a broad sense. At the same time, Denmark “has for some time tried to dilute the principle of freedom of navigation in the straits and established various notifications and procedures in domestic law, including for the passage of warships”, – notes the lawyer.
According to the international “Treaty of Copenhagen”, signed, including by the Russian Empire, in 1857, all “Danish” straits were given the status of international waterways with the abolition of duties previously imposed by the Danes and the establishment of a regime of free navigation for all countries.
To ensure the safety of shipping in the straits, Denmark provides pilotage services, and the UN’s specialized maritime agency “highly recommend”, but does not oblige shipowners to use the services of pilots/pilots.
The Royal Decrees of 1951 and 1976, without interfering with commercial shipping, introduced a notification procedure for the passage of warships through the straits (there is nothing about tankers). In March 2022, the Danish pilots’ association announced the termination of the service of vessels with Russian cargo, but two months later the Danish government reversed this decision.
Taking into account the radically changed operational factors and conditions of cargo shipping, adjustments are needed to the existing fragile regulatory framework based on the Convention on the Law of the Sea, which guarantees unimpeded navigation in international straits.
Unfortunately, there is still no such document (at least as the Montreux Convention on the Black Sea Straits) designed to at least regulate the international transport of cargo through the Trans-Baltic Straits. This circumstance facilitates any arbitrary decisions by Denmark (and Sweden) as well as their allies regarding the passage of tankers through these arteries.
According to some reports, in connection with the accession of Denmark to NATO in 1949, the Soviet Union proposed the development of a regional cargo shipping agreement that would guarantee, due to the international importance of the “Danish” straits, the freedom of movement of non-military cargo through them in both directions (1).
In response to this (and in subsequent decades), Copenhagen consistently assured that the inclusion of Denmark in NATO did not endanger the transit of goods through the mentioned straits. For the time being, Moscow was satisfied with such assurances, especially since Sweden was neutral, allowing the “Swedish” sector of the straits to be used, if necessary, in the event that NATO forces blocked the “Danish” section of these arteries for cargo ships of the Soviet Union.
Now, however, the issue of Sweden’s accession to NATO seems practically resolved. Having joined the European Union in 1995, Stockholm joined Brussels’ anti-Russian sanctions in 2014 and has successively tightened them.
The hypothetical introduction of restrictive measures against the export of Russian oil is fraught with other pitfalls. Thus, any reaction by Moscow to the possible detention of ships flying the flag of third countries will make it easier for them to be recognized by the self-proclaimed “Russian Shadow Navy” hunters. In addition, possible difficulties in the “Danish-Swedish” straits are aimed at a reorientation to the Bosphorus – Suez Canal – Red Sea route, for which transit prices will consistently increase from 2022.
In this way, the problem of reducing the profitability of the supply of Russian oil to the world markets, where it is more than the demand, can be indirectly solved. Increasing traffic on the Black Sea part of this route (Bosphorus and Dardanelles) is also fraught with legal difficulties that can be used to exert political pressure on Moscow.
About a year ago, in December 2022, dozens of ships were blocked in the straits under the pretext that foreign insurance companies refused to provide letters of confirmation of insurance for the passage through the straits to both Russian tankers and tankers under the so-called “flags of convenience” carrying Russian oil.
If restrictive measures are introduced in the Danish Straits without consequences for the initiators of such measures, a similar temptation will certainly arise among the countries of the Far East that have joined the anti-Russian sanctions – Japan and South Korea. Tankers carrying Russian oil sent to countries in the Asia-Pacific region partially pass through waters and straits controlled by Tokyo and Seoul.
The enemy has once again demonstrated that it has many “homemade preparations” designed to complicate the foreign trade relations of the Russian Federation as much as possible. “The problem is that it will be problematic to interfere in any way with the verification process” admits Readovka.
Escorting each of the hundreds of tankers with naval forces is an unrealistic task, as is preventing a NATO country from inspecting “suspicious vessels” in its territorial waters. Here, Denmark is reliably covered by the ‘umbrella’ of Article 5 of the Charter of the Alliance”, so the response must be asymmetric, taking into account the risks created by the next Western adventure for buyers of Russian energy commodities.
If the situation develops in an unfavorable scenario, appeals to international arbitral tribunals invoking the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea are likely to follow. It is unlikely that the relevant UN structures will risk including Russian oil in the register of sanctioned products, but the demonstrative disregard for any legal norms on the part of the collective West suggests the possibility of any development of events…
Note:
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Interested in alternative arteries between the Baltic and the Atlantic, the USSR proposed in 1946-47 the extension of the principle of freedom of non-military navigation to the Baltic-Atlantic Kiel Canal (100 km long) south of Schleswig and the Danish-Swedish straits, with the limitation of German sovereignty over it in this artery.
However, Great Britain, in whose zone of occupation this channel is, in 1946 restored the principle of freedom of navigation here, abolished by the Nazis in 1938. At the same time, however, the British, with the support of the United States, refused to limit the sovereignty of the newly formed Federal Republic of Germany.
To date, in fact, the anti-Russian sanctions of the European Union are actually applied to this route: if in 2021 2,771 units of the merchant fleet with Russian cargo passed through the Kiel Canal, then in 2022 – almost half as many: 1,420 units. The volume of transported cargo decreased from 14.2 million tons to 5.7 million tons, falling by two thirds. According to preliminary estimates, the reduction in the volume of these shipments in 2023 will be at least another 35% from the level of 2022. The transportation of Russian cargo here was limited under any pretext, which increases the importance for the Russian Federation of not yet – the sanctioned “Danish-Swedish” straits.
Translation: ES
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