Russia redraws territorial waters baseline in Baltic Sea
Update to the previous baseline drawn by the Soviet Union in 1985
Tensions in the Baltic are high, but while not necessarily common, the adjusting of baselines is not that unusual and is within a state’s gift
RUSSIA intends to redraw the baseline it uses to measure its 12 nautical miles of territorial waters, claiming the maps drawn in 1985 are outdated.
Resolution 918, dated June 18, redraws the baseline to include an arc around the islands of Gogland, Sommers, Rodsher and the two Tyuters in the Gulf of Finland, as well as an adjustment in the enclave of Kaliningrad.
This latest effort to adjust its territorial waters mirrors a decree issued in May 2024, which was quickly removed from the public eye after criticism from surrounding Nato states.
Back then, Lithuania’s Foreign Minister Gabrielius Landsbergis called the move an “obvious escalation”, though Finland’s Prime Minister Petteri Orpo said he didn’t see much cause for concern.
Under the letter of the UN Convention of the Law of the Sea, nations can claim 12 nautical miles from the low tide point of the coastline. However, coastlines rarely follow neat lines, especially in the Baltic Sea and Arctic Ocean, so UNCLOS allows states to draw straight baselines to simplify things. Usually, the lines are drawn between capes, islands and headlands.
Adjusting the points from which baselines are drawn can, of course, mean extending territorial waters outwards, and nowhere is that more significant that the Gulf of Finland, where Russia butts up against the two Nato members of Estonia and Finland.
In this case, the coordinates published by the Russian government look to include those aforementioned islands in the Baltic. On the surface, any gain in territorial waters looks minimal.
Kristina Siig, professor of maritime law and law of the sea at the University of Southern Denmark, warned against viewing this latest act through the prism of increasing tension in the region.
Technology has, after all, improved significantly since the USSR drew the 1985 baseline, not to mention the geographical changes that will have occurred in that time.
This is also not that an unusual thing for a state to do, Control Risks’ senior maritime security analyst Victoria Mitchell told Lloyd’s List.
“Changing the baselines can be a normal practice,” she said.
It also will not change the boundaries between sovereign states, which are agreed by treaties signed between Russia and its Baltic neighbours. These are final and binding, and can’t be changed by simply redrawing the baseline.
This change is unlikely to have any major impact on the access of shadow fleet tankers in and out of St. Petersburg and Ust-Luga though. As Siig said, barring a 200 nm expansion into the Baltic Sea — which would certainly be contested in the International Tribunal for the Law of the Sea in Hamburg — there is already plenty of Russian water for said tankers to operate in.
But with unverified videos of a Russian jet buzzing a US warship in the Baltic circulating social media, and as Estonia begins to dig defences along its southeastern border, it’s understandable that Nato nations might treat any attempt by Russia to expand its reach, no matter how small, as a provocative act.
But Siig pointed said the “Western bloc” should “take a breather” and analyse the changes before acting.
“We are concerned about the Russian shadow fleet because we are concerned about the environment. We are concerned about Ukraine and the Russian war economy,” she said.
“But we should also make sure that we are not biased in our perspective, because we might talk ourselves into a level of tension that we cannot back down from again.”
