Moscow is holding freedom of navigation in the Azov Sea and through the Kerch Strait to ransom, continuing to arbitrarily delay Ukraine-bound commercial vessels whenever it wants, researchers have said.
As opposed to keeping it open for business, as promised, the Kremlin continues to use the Kerch Strait and Azov Sea as a strategic choke point to strangle Ukrainian shipping and wage economic war against Ukraine, experts have concluded after a months-long study.
Furthermore, Russia seems to be using its power over freedom of navigation through the troubled maritime area as a strategic tool to manipulate perceptions of the crisis and leverage favorable conditions with European countries.
A new Ukrainian study, jointly prepared by the Maidan of Foreign Affairs Monitoring Group, the Institute of Black Sea Studies and the BlackSeaNews website contradicts the official Russian line that it has ceased blockading the Kerch Strait and Azov Sea, which the Kremlin claims is now completely open to commercial maritime traffic.
Instead, researchers note that Russia stops interfering with freedom of navigation in the Azov Sea and through the Kerch Strait, a narrow waterway that connects it to the Black Sea, only at certain times – notably during periods of increased international attention or after critical speeches from key, Western leaders.
At other times, Russian coast guard vessels continue to delay commercial ships for unacceptable amounts of time, the researchers have concluded.
Effective blockade continues
From May through to October 2018, researchers say that Russia detained at least 110 Ukraine-bound ships in the open waters of the Azov Sea. Half of those ships detained for lengthy inspections were European-flagged vessels.
Shipping companies have reported millions of dollars in losses due to delays while Ukrainian port authorities say a blockade could cost their ports up to $2 billion per year.
From October 2018 to January, open sea detentions by Russian security forces have stopped completely, allowing the Kremlin to claim that its blockade is over, with certain European leaders then repeating that claim.
Researchers say that further such detentions in the Azov Sea are being deterred by Ukrainian navy patrol vessels that were deployed to the area last September and now exercise around the Azov Sea’s shipping lanes. Other experts have said that Ukraine-bound shipping to the Azov ports of Mariupol or Berdyansk has dropped significantly, meaning there is very little for Russian forces to detain even if they wanted to.
But while detentions have ceased in the Azov Sea’s open waters, delays at the Kerch Strait remain a significant problem, the report states, with the few merchant ships attempting to travel to or from Berdyansk and Mariupol still facing long and expensive delays.
Since July last year, Russian forces have been delaying Ukraine-bound merchant ships at the Kerch Strait, with average delays for ships starting at 28 hours in July and reaching their highest point in November, where ships faced an average 124-hour wait before they could pass into the Azov Sea.
Since then, the average wait time for ships being delayed has dropped: in December 2018, researchers say that merchant vessels faced an average wait time of 71 hours, dropping to 32 hours by this January.
But the drop in average wait time isn’t a cause for celebration for researchers, however, who argue that the average delay duration has been skewed by a series of events where Russia stopped interfering with commercial shipping in response to European pressure, before resuming again.
A Jan. 18 screenshot from MarineTraffic, a wesbite that uses sattelite data to track ship movements, shows the lack of activity around Ukraine’s Azov Sea ports of Mariupol and Berdiansk but a steady stream of marine traffic to and from Russia’s Azov ports at Rostov, Yeisk and Taganrog. (MarineTraffic)
Manipulating the Europeans
Moscow has seemed to deliberately and strategically manipulate the Kerch crisis in a way that allows it to throttle Ukrainian shipping as much as possible while also being able to placate European criticism.
This week’s new study presents data that researchers argue proves Russia only stops interfering with freedom of navigation for short periods when it’s subject to the attention and scrutiny of European Union leaders.
The researchers also suggest that European scrutiny and the threat of sanctions on Russian Azov Sea ports has an effect, with a temporary reduction in Kerch Strait interference during and after periods where EU leaders have drawn attention to the crisis.
Data shows that in the days leading up to a joint statement of condemnation on the Kerch crisis, and later phone calls with Russian President Putin, by German Chancellor Angela Merkel and French President Emmanuel Macron on Dec. 28, delay times for merchant ships had been as lengthy as 74 hours.
For a couple of days following their highly critical speech and talks with Putin, delays at the Kerch passage dropped significantly to as low as four or five hours, before increasing again to as long as 75 hours up until the middle of January.
Wait times then dropped dramatically once again, to as low as five hours over a couple of days when German Foreign Minister Heiko Maas visited Moscow on Jan. 15.
A few days later, on Jan. 18, Maas made a controversial statement where he claimed that the Kerch Strait was open to shipping and it was business as usual for merchant vessels in the Azov Sea. Over the following days, Maas was criticized for towing the Kremlin line as wait times for ships began increasing again to as long as 90 hours.
A similar pattern is seen in data for the last few days of January, where Kerch Strait wait times dropped down to as low as four hours, as an EU observer mission was touring Ukraine’s Azov Sea region to scout areas of investment and aid spending.
Moscow’s strategy
Researchers conclude that Russia is manipulating the situation to dishonestly demonstrate they have lifted the blockade, while skewing the statistics on average wait times and placating European criticism with temporary halts to interference, while most of the time continuing to blockade the Kerch Strait.
They also suggest, however, that their data could demonstrate that EU scrutiny and criticism, as well as the threat of extra sanctions, does have an effect on Moscow’s strategy – if only temporary.
“On the one hand, the above facts indicate that the Russian leadership is forced to respond to direct appeals and accusations by reputable EU leaders,” said the study’s authors Andriy Klymenko and Tetyana Guchakova, in an emailed comment to Kyiv Post.
“Most likely, the reduction in time delays of vessels in the Kerch Strait should be seen as a tactical move by the Russian Federation, against the backdrop of a more important strategic issue: the final decision on the fate of the Nord Stream 2 project, which is continuing in parallel now,” they added.
In their study, the researchers warn against any moves to weaken pressure on Russia in response to what they call an ongoing blockade of the Azov Sea. Instead, the international community, and particularly the EU, should prepare new measures to support Ukraine while responding to Moscow.
They also warn that an immediate plan of action is needed to boost overland logistics and infrastructure between the southeastern cities of Mariupol, Berdyansk and Zaporizhia, in preparation for Russia completely blockading access to Berdyansk and Mariupol by sea, and closing the Kerch Strait to Ukrainian shipping entirely.
