Ukrainian Navy Captain: Kremlin's Goals Revealed By Delegation Members' Selection

At the negotiations in Saudi Arabia, Russia was represented by the architect of the division of the Caspian Sea.

One of the topics of negotiations between Russia, the United States and Ukraine in Saudi Arabia was the "truce in the Black Sea". The Russians put forward a number of demands for a ceasefire. US President Donald Trump said that his administration is studying the conditions of the Kremlin.

Why did the Black Sea issue arise in the negotiations? The Charter97.org website talked about this with Pavlo Lakiychuk, the 1st rank captain of the Ukrainian Navy, the head of the military programs of the Center for Global Studies "Strategy XXI".

— The Russians agree to negotiate only on issues where they do not have a clear advantage. As soon as Ukraine began to successfully strike deep into their territory, which seriously affected the Russian military economy and the main sources of income from oil exports, one of the possible topics of negotiations was a truce regarding deep strikes and attacks on infrastructure.

The second situation concerns the Black Sea. Unlike the land sections of the borders or the line of hostilities, in the Black Sea the initiative is clearly not on the side of Russia. Moreover, the initiative there belongs to Ukraine. The Ukrainian military managed to expel the Russian occupiers from the northwestern part of the Black Sea, in fact from a large part of the western sector. The Russian fleet was forced to move from Sevastopol to Novorossiysk.

We refused the discriminatory moratorium on actions in the Black Sea proposed by Russia, and now the economic situation speaks for itself. Our Danube ports, Izmail, Belgorod-Dnestrovsky, and Reni, are starting to lose clients as the main flow of cargo returns to the Odesa ports. The sea traffic of our ports is already reaching almost the level of 2021, that is, before the outbreak of a full-scale war.

The Russians do not like it, they want to return everything to its original position. Therefore, the Kremlin is ready to negotiate on maritime issues in order to regain its advantage diplomatically. It is no coincidence that at the talks in Saudi Arabia, the Russian delegation is represented by General Sergei Beseda, a well-known ideologist of the occupation of Ukraine, as well as Grigory Karasin, a former Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs of the Russian Federation, now a senator.

It is his merit to divide the Caspian Sea in those ratios that are most beneficial for Russia, but contradict the international law of the sea and the principles of determining maritime boundaries. He is also known for his participation in the signing of an extremely unfavorable for Ukraine agreement on the Sea of Azov after the Russian provocation on the island of Tuzla in 2003.

Grigory Karasin remembered one phrase during the negotiations on the delimitation of the Sea of Azov, when the Ukrainian negotiators pointed out the need to follow the international law of the sea, Karasin replied: "I am here and the international law of the sea." Here are all the prerequisites for a possible sea truce.

— Ukraine clearly has an advantage in the Black Sea thanks to the development of an unmanned fleet. From a military point of view, is such a truce beneficial for Kiev?

— While the final results are unknown, two aspects can be noted. First: we are talking about the northwestern part of the Black Sea — this is the Odesa Bay and the water area between the occupied Crimea, Ukraine and Romania.

The war began with the blockade of our sea by the Russians. Thanks to our Neptune and Harpoon missile systems, and then naval drones, it was possible to oust Russian forces from this water area and resume civilian navigation in Ukrainian ports. This is the merit of the Ukrainian military.

Now we turn to diplomacy — if the United States recognizes the Russian right to the occupied Crimea, it will automatically recognize both the territorial waters and the economic zone around the peninsula. In this variant of the truce, Ukraine will have only a narrow strip between Snake Island and Romanian territorial waters, not controlled by Russia. In fact, this means the return of the blockade of about 75% of the Ukrainian coast. Who benefits from them?

Another important point that Americans are actively discussing is the 2022 grain deal. After Russia withdrew from this agreement, it expected to completely stop sea traffic. This agreement was initially discriminatory towards Ukraine.

Today, everyone knows the names of ships under civil flags that carry Russian weapons to the Black and Mediterranean Seas, but no sanctions are imposed on them, they freely pass the Black Sea Straits. On the other hand, civilian vessels of third countries carrying agricultural goods to Ukraine or exporting Ukrainian grain were subjected to inspection by a Russian-Ukrainian-Turkish commission.

Russia's participation has become a kind of narrow bottleneck. When the Russian side decided to pass, for example, four ships, they arrived for inspection, they could say: "You can pass." And then: "We have lunch until tomorrow, so the rest are also waiting." Thus, no more vessels were searched.

During the periods when Russia was withdrawing from the grain agreement, the Ukrainian-Turkish commission allowed up to 40–60 vessels to pass daily, which made it possible to quickly unload this traffic jam. This mechanism artificially limited access to Ukrainian ports by hybrid methods. The resumption of the grain agreement in this format will be another victory for Russia.

— The Financial Times writes that Romania and Bulgaria are concerned about the negotiations on the Black Sea between the United States and Russia. What are the risks?

— At the moment, Ukrainian naval forces have pushed back Russian terrorists from the western part of the Black Sea. The actions of Russian ships in this region are now extremely limited due to the effective operation of our marine drones.

Returning to the previous situation will allow Russia to regain access to the waters from which its military were expelled. This creates a threat of mining of fairways of both hidden and open nature, as well as international sea routes.

Only Russia is interested in such a situation. Therefore, both Romania and Bulgaria are concerned about this development, realizing that they do not have enough forces to deter Russia and conduct mine action operations.

Turkey does not want to play the role of a peacekeeper directly in the Black Sea, preferring to remain "above the fight", benefiting from cooperation with both Russia and Ukraine. Controlling the Black Sea straits, the Turks believe that they control the Black Sea, although in fact this is not entirely true.

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