How can Ukraine respond?

We have overlooked it. We have missed it. We have ignored it. This seems the right assessment of the situation concerning the dam that the Russians are building to link, they claim, the Taman Peninsula (territory of Russia) and the Tuzla Strip island (part of Ukraine). The Russians seem to be so much toying with the idea of the Single Economic Space (SES) that they forgot to observe the basic principles of relations with other states. Old problems have resurfaced. Old lingering disputes are again in the focus. Astonishingly, one of our most important strategic partners does not even try to explain more or less clearly how far the dike will stretch. Meanwhile, construction is in full swing. Stakhanov himself (Stalin period shock worker — Ed.) would have died of envy. The first meters of the levee were laid two weeks ago, on September 29... Then come the mind-boggling figures. The Russians cover an average 100 meters and make an average 1,500 truck trips a day. As of the morning of October 10, the dike was 2,350 meters long, one and a half kilometers or so away from the border with Ukraine. Should the weather be fair (a storm slowed down the work recently), the dam will reach the border in about ten days. What then?

At first glance, the Tuzla story is quite obscure. As is known, the 1920s Tuzla was a true geographic spit that stretched out of the Russian Taman peninsula. Some time later, however, the four-kilometer link was washed out and turned it into the island of Tuzla belonging to Krasnodar Region. Theh by decree of the Russian Supreme Soviet Presidium the island was handed over to the Crimean Autonomous Soviet Republic in 1941. The USSR Supreme Soviet Presidium, in its turn, decreed in 1954 to transfer the Crimean oblast (no longer an autonomous republic) to the Ukrainian SSR. Accordingly, after the Soviet Union collapsed, Tuzla Island remained part of Ukrainian territory, After independence, the governments of Ukraine and Russia have approved a series of other documents confirming the administrative borders that existed in the Soviet period. Not to bore the reader with a long list of agreements and treaties that confirmed this situation, let me recall only some of them: the Ukrainian- Russian Agreement on Further Development of Interstate Relations (1992), The Treaty of Friendship, Cooperation, and Partnership (1997), the Agreement on the Establishment of the CIS (1991), the Declaration on Observing the Sovereignty, Territorial Integrity and Border Inviolability of CIS States (1994), etc. Finally, the Treaty on the Ukrainian-Russian State Border signed this year by Vladimir Putin and Leonid Kuchma, which says black in white, “Disputes over adjacent sea areas shall be settled by agreement between the Contracting Parties in compliance with international law.”

Plus there is a host of official statements from the Russian side on Ukraine’s jurisdiction over Tuzla. For example, The Day has found in its archive quite an important statement of Russia’s current Foreign Minister Igor Ivanov (deputy foreign minister at the time) dated 1997. “In 1993, the demarcation lines between Russia and former Soviet Union republics were granted the status of state borders, which sometimes involved signing corresponding international treaties. Naturally, this definition also formally applies to the fragment of the Russian- Ukrainian border that passes through the Tuzla Spit,” Mr. Ivanov declared. He went on to say that, after finishing the talks with Ukraine, the two sides “might explore the possibility of joint sovereignty over the Tuzla Spit.” It should be stressed that the talks on the Ukrainian- Russian border’s sea segment are still in progress.

Ukraine received no warning, nor were there any negotiations. Kyiv is still unaware to what line Russia is going to build the dam. Aleksandr Tkachev, head of the Krasnodar Regional Administration, said last week that “we do not intend to trespass the administrative boundary between the Crimea and Krasnodar Region...” It seemingly follows from this statement released by the Russian Foreign Ministry that the state border will not be violated. Yet, this raises many questions. The Russians are trying to convince us that they are building the dike to improve the “ecological balance” on the Taman peninsula. Will they be able to improve it unless the dam reaches the island of Tuzla? If not, the levee will make no sense at all. Meanwhile, Ukraine is sure, on the contrary, that the construction of the dike will lead to unpredictable environmental consequences.

When the dike is finally built, Ukraine will in fact lose control of the Strait of Kerch. It is enough to look at the map to understand that Russia’s jurisdiction over Tuzla will radically change the ongoing talks on the delimitation of Azov and Kerch water areas. Under this scenario, Ukraine will have to content itself with a very thin coastal strip. Moreover, other neighboring states, which are also holding border talks with Ukraine (Moldova and Romania), could take advantage of Kyiv’s obvious weakness. Incidentally, Ukraine is still smarting after an annoying incident, when Moldovan border guards seized the Dnister Hydroelectric Station last summer. While the Moldovan military still holds this facility, Ukraine has “successfully” avoided solution of the existing problem. This could eventually jeopardize Ukraine’s territorial integrity. Each of the neighboring countries might as well make a foray into Ukrainian lands without fearing that it will face any adequate response.

We know that border security has been tightened in Tuzla. Yet, the Russians are keeping up the same rate of construction. It is planned that Verkhovna Rada will debate Ukrainian-Russian relations on October 22. The session will, by all accounts, focus on the Tuzla incident. Is that not too late? For the dike will have probably been built by then. In such a situation, parliamentary hearings will become merely a theoretical discussion.

Sources close to the government told The Day that Ukraine’s Foreign Ministry is considering appeals to international organizations in connection with the Tuzla incident. But when will the government make public its official position? When the Russians finish the dam?