On February 17, 2025, the Russian government announced the termination of the agreement with Ukraine aimed at ensuring the safety of navigation in the waters of the Sea of ​​Azov and the Kerch Strait. The order, signed by Prime Minister Mikhail Mishustin, was published on the official legal information portal. The Ministry of Foreign Affairs was instructed to notify the Ukrainian side of the decision.

The agreement in question was concluded between the governments of Russia and Ukraine on March 20, 2012 in Moscow. Its purpose was to improve navigation safety in regions with intensive shipping, such as the Sea of ​​Azov and the Kerch Strait. The document provided, in particular, for the organization of the exchange of automatic identification system (AIS) data between the parties for the effective monitoring of shipping.

The decision to terminate the agreement was made in accordance with paragraph 1 of Article 37 of the Federal Law "On International Treaties of the Russian Federation". This paragraph provides the right to terminate the international treaty in the event of a significant change in the circumstances that existed at the time of its conclusion.

It is worth noting that this is not the first case of denunciation of agreements between the two countries in the maritime sphere. In June 2023, Russian President Vladimir Putin signed a law on the denunciation of the agreement with Ukraine on the use of the Sea of ​​Azov and the Kerch Strait, signed in 2003. At that time, the Kremlin explained the need for denunciation by the fact that after the accession of the Donetsk People's Republic, as well as the Zaporizhia and Kherson regions, to Russia, the Sea of ​​Azov became an internal sea of ​​the Russian Federation.