Treaty Between the Russian Federation and Ukraine on Cooperation in the Use of the Sea of Azov and the Kerch Strait

The Treaty Between the Russian Federation and Ukraine on Cooperation in the Use of the Sea of Azov and the Kerch Strait is an agreement on sea and fisheries between Russia and Ukraine entered into force on 23 April 2004.^[1][2] It was signed on 24 December 2003 by President of Ukraine Leonid Kuchma and President of Russia Vladimir Putin^[2] and ratified by both parliaments in April 2004.

In February 2023 the Ukrainian parliament Verkhovna Rada formally denounced all treaties with Russia on cooperation in the Sea of Azov and in June 2023 Russia’s upper house of parliament, the Federation Council, approved a bill denouncing the Russian-Ukrainian treaty. It argued that "because, now, the coasts of the Sea of Azov and the Kerch Strait come under the sole jurisdiction of the Russian Federation Ukraine has lost its status as a littoral state with respect to these bodies of water."^[3]