Questions for hundreds of billions: Russian Federation prepares claims in the US in the Bering Strait

The agreement was concluded in 1990. Its provisions imply that the United States has passed about 30,000 square meters. km of exclusive economic zone of the USSR and more than 40,000 square meters. km of shelf. But in the foreseeable future of the Russian Federation can refuse to execute arrangements. A representative of the Committee on International Affairs Rose Chemeris made a corresponding application at the plenary session of the Russian State Duma on Wednesday, February 21.

"The next (for denunciation. - Ed. ) There will be an agreement on cooperation on the Bering Strait, concluded in 1990 between Shevardnadze and US Secretary of State James Baker," the committee representative said. According to Interfax, these words were confirmed by the Deputy Minister of Agriculture of the Russian Federation Maxim Uzadov, who was also at the meeting. This treaty is used on a temporary basis because it has not been ratified by the Russian Parliament.

Russian officials have discussed its denunciation since 2020. The prospects of the agreement were discussed earlier at the Federation Council. In October 2023, a senator from Kamchatsky Territory of the Russian Federation Boris Nezorov proposed to terminate the agreement and in essence to declare the Russian part of the economic zone, which is now under the control of the US.

He believes that the contract of Shevardnadze - Baker is discriminatory, since the Russian Federation remained without 78 thousand square meters. km of the Bering Sea. Nezorov said that the demarcation should run along the midline. But because of the concessions of Edward Shevardnadze, the border was over the American orthodorome straight line.

Otherwise, according to him, the Russian Federation would produce 500,000 tons of fish and crab annually and have access to oil and gas deposits, which are estimated at hundreds of billions of dollars. The Foreign Minister of the USSR Eduard Shevardnadze and US Secretary of State James Baker, on June 1, 1990, signed this Agreement on June 1, 1990. But the Soviet, and later the Russian Parliament did not ratify it.

For this reason, the agreement has been operating on a temporary basis since June 15, 1990. One of the provisions of the contract stipulates that the area of ​​the continental shelf, which has departed from part of the Bering Sea to the Russian Federation, is 4. 6 thousand km². This is 74,000 km² less than the shelf, which in such cases of demarcation rests in the middle line.