Comments | ontd_political: Russia ready for showdown with UK over arms being transported to Syria in cargo ship.

atomic_joe2 in ontd_political

Russia ready for showdown with UK over arms being transported to Syria in cargo ship.

Jul 15, 2012 09:08

Russia is heading for a diplomatic stand-off with Britain over a cargo ship carrying helicopter gunships destined for Syria, which is accompanied by the Russian navy ( Read more... )

russia, war, middle east, doomsday, syria, attacks, military, nato, uk

Comments 7

alicephilippa July 15 2012, 08:59:32 UTC

Pass me a large pinch of salt. It is the Daily Fail after all.

I'm not sure what they are doing in trying to stir up anti-Russian feelings. And tying it to a completely unrelated story, low very low.

atomic_joe2 July 15 2012, 18:30:32 UTC

Hmm I can see your point there. I actually read it in the Mirror but as I couldn't find their article online I had no choice but to post the Fail's as it was all I could find.

anjak_j July 16 2012, 00:00:26 UTC

I never thought I'd see the day when the Mirror would be considered a reliable news source when compared to another publication. (Mind, pretty much anything is more reliable than the Fail.)

romp July 15 2012, 18:32:50 UTC

If you google russia syria, you'll get several recent news stories including ones from the Telegraph and the Guardian.

Thread 5

romp July 15 2012, 18:40:48 UTC

Thanks for posting this. I went out for most stories on the topic and don't know how this didn't cross my path before. I just want to see Syria reined in on killing--my optimistic spin is that Russia will get the message and back off.

anjak_j July 16 2012, 01:06:22 UTC

While Russia isn't bound by EU restrictions, I'd hope that the constant reports of violence against civilians and human rights violations would put the shipment on hold. Russia cannot guarantee that these helicopters won't be used on civilians, given the state of things in Syria right now.

While the Law of the Sea allows for 'innocent passage' by ships under flag of one nation through another nation's territorial waters (12nm from the coastal low water line), the EU ban on arms deliveries to the Syrian government might call into question whether or not these ships are passing innocently through UK waters. (Another 12nm can be added for the contiguous zone, where the UK is allowed to prevent or punish infringements of its customs, amongst other things. And a ship breaking a ban the UK is signed up to could be considered such an infringement.)

If it is the intent of the Russian ships to stay more than 24nm out and skirt around the UK's territorial waters and contiguous zone, there really isn't much the UK can do.