Russia wants to change its borders in the Baltic Sea

The Russian Defence Ministry believes that the list of coordinates of the coast and islands of Russia in the Baltic Sea from 1985 is be irrelevant. The current border at sea does not correspond to the "geographical situation,” the military found.

Photo: flickr.com by Berit is licensed under Creative Commons Attribution 2.0 Generic

The Ministry of Defence of the Russian Federation proposed updating the list of points from which one measures the width of the strip of territorial waters off the mainland coast and Russian islands in the Baltic Sea.

According to the ministry, the current list of coordinates was approved on January 15, 1985 "based on small-scale nautical navigation charts.” The list requires changes, as it does not correspond to the "geographical situation of today.”

"Straight baselines in the Gulf of Finland neither continue nor close on the territory of the Russian Federation, which, in turn, does not make it possible to determine the external border of internal sea waters,” the Ministry of Defence said in a statment. The current list "does not take into account the practice of establishing direct baselines of other states.”

The ministry proposed to establish a system of straight baselines in the eastern part of the Gulf of Finland, as well as in the area of Baltiysk and Zelenogradsk. This will change the alignment of the state border in the Baltic Sea and it will thus be possible to use it as internal sea waters, the Ministry of Defence added. However, the project lacks an application with a new list of coordinates of the points that would reflect the state border.

The Russian State Register was instructed to take into account changes in the Russian state border in the Baltic Sea. The Ministry of Foreign Affairs was instructed to deposit copies of the adjusted and reissued maps with the UN Secretary General. The changes are to take effect in January 2025. The project is currently at the stage of public discussion, RBC reports.

Russia borders Lithuania and Poland on the Baltic Sea. According to the border service, the total length of the country's maritime borders amounts to 38,000 kilometres.